World Famous Comics: Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training
Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training
By: Dan Slott Publisher: Marvel Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Marvel Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 144 Publication Date: April 09, 2008
Product Description: The Civil War is over and from now on, this is the new face of the Marvel Universe - The Initiative! Whose side were you on? If you were pro-registration, then there's one hell of a price to pay. You're in the army now. Every last one of you. Fall in with Yellowjacket, War Machine, She-Hulk, Justice and The Gauntlet as they train the heroes of tomorrow for the super-powered conflicts of today! Marvel's army of super heroes has just become a super hero army! Also featuring The Mighty Avengers and a new generation of Marvels. Collects The Initiative #1-6.
Uncle Sam Wants Them I thought that a lot of the Civil War ties have been weak, but not The Initiative. This series is off to a strong start.
From the first issue, you're introduced to some promising new characters. You think you know where the series is headed and - bam! - Slott throws you a very unexpected, even brilliant curve. I wish I could tell you what makes it so great without giving anything away, but I don't want to spoil any surprises for you. Just trust me - this book goes into some very unexpected places and that's a good thing.
Another good thing is the way Slott uses some of the Marvel U's existing characters to bring depth and tension to the series. Hank Pym, the former Marvel Boy and War Machine all have pivotal roles. Slott is respectful of their histories, but gives them some new twists and conflicts that really flesh these characters out. I also enjoyed seeing old favorite Danielle Moonstar.
The last few years have brought us at least two five-star series about younger heroes - Young Avengers and Runaways, Vol. 1. I wouldn't put The Initiative quite up there with those books, but it comes pretty close. As the series progresses into it's later issues, it gets more tied into other Marvel U events - particularly World War Hulk.
Some of the emphasis that could have gone into developing the new characters of The Initiative goes into catching the reader up on Dreaded Crossover Backstory. None of which is Slott's fault, of course, it's what happens when a series is too closely tied into these big Universe-wide events. They make for great marketing ploys but rarely great single issues.
Still, I strongly recommend Avengers: The Initiative Vol. 1: Basic Training. It's a solid book that you'll really enjoy. There's a lot of potential here; you might as well get on for the start.
Cool Premise What should the Marvel heroes do after the fall out of a Civil War? Why not start a group of registered super heroes to protect every state? At least that's Tony Stark's idea in the new title, The Initiative. I love the writing here and the art is great too. Two of my favorites serve as leaders at a sort of "boot camp" for new heroes. Jim Rhodes, or War Machine, and Hank Pym, Yellowjacket. I just wish the writer wouldn't always have to bring up the fact that Hank had some problems with Jan in the past. I'd say he has atoned for his sins enough. But anyways, this new character Trauma could pretty much carry the book on his own in my opinion. I could really care less about the other heroes, but maybe they'll grow on me as time passes. Plus, in this volume, you do get to see the Thunderbolts, and they rock! Peace and Love, Jake
A Good Story But Some Really Lame Characters I've been a long X-Men fan, and read many of those series for a decade, and thought I'd see what was going on in the Avengers world. I picked this one up at the book store because I liked Caselli's art. The final section features art by Uy which is pretty horrible, but for the most part, the book has great art. The story is good, and introduces a bunch of new (at least they seem new to me) characters such as Cloud 9, Trauma, MVP, Armory, Komodo, and Hardball. Sadly, these interesting characters are eclipsed by the huge numbers of lame 50s-era creatively-bankrupt characters in spandex body suits: Bengal, The Shocker, Boomerang, Constrictor, She-Hulk, Triathlon, and Hydroman. Then there are the stupid characters from the 50-state initiative which are all themed on the state they're from. For example, in Texas, we have the obvious things like Armadillo, Texas Twister, Free Bird, and Shooting Star, all dressed in cowboy hats and chaps. The most horrible of the new characters are a clown-hero named Slapstick, complete with white gloves and bozo hair, and the wonderfully creative "Thor Girl". It's just embarrassing. Yet all these super hero rejects aside, the story ended up being good. If you're not bothered by heroes ideas that make you cringe, I'd pick it up.
after the civil war, please meet ... THE INITIATIVE ! After the great event that was the Civil War between our heroes (and the loss of Captain America), the Initiative plan is about to become the next legend coming from the House of Ideas !!
The Initiative Kicks off With a Bang Avengers: The Initiative is joy to read. Slott's writing makes this book good both in collected format and in chapterized reads. The first six issues of the title are mostly character driven, despite the huge character Slott has created, he manages to focus each issue in each character. This books is not as light hearted as the stuff Slott is known for (She-Hulk), its an extremely serious book, with political links to it and it also finds space to be funny. Slott manages to surprise us all the time and in these six issues of A:TI more stuff happens than in years worth of stories in other books and somehow, none of it feels rushed.
The first three issues are all stand alone and are all EXTREMELY enjoyable. The first issue introduces the new cast to the reader and it doesn't focus too much on a single character. The second issue focuses mainly on Cloud 9 and her guilt of what happened in the first issue of the title, in this installment The Initiative and the Rangers attack Hydra, and the action sequence is very enjoyable. Issue three has a guest appearance by no other than your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and this issue focuses a lot on Komodo, once again this issue manages to tell a fun done-in-one story and heck, Slott writes a great Spider-Man, thank god Marvel put him in the Spidey Braintrust.
Issues Four and Five are Tie-Ins to the World War Hulk summer event at Marvel. The issues don't add much to the story in the WWH (though, we do get a reason why Iron Man's armor fails to kill the Hulk), but they help move forward the character arcs going on in the book. The first part (The Green Zone) focuses on Hardball and his moment of desperation. The second part is great as well, it debuts the Shadow Initiative, the black ops team, which is a great addition to the cast, specially with Trauma (my favourite character in this book) in it, this book also focuses largely on Trauma's character and his developments at controlling his power.
Issue 6 is the weakest of the bunch. Despite the story being well written, a nice done-in-one by Slott, which I hope will have ramifications in the future of the initiative, by the art by Steve Uy is BAD. His covers for some of the upcoming issues look much better than the work he puts here, if you can get someone to read this book outloud to you, your enjoyment of it will be higher.
All in all, Basic Training is a very solid start to this series. It is smartly written by Slott and has some great art provided by Stefano Caselli, who, despite not being mentioned above, is crucial to the overall enjoyment of this collection.
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