NYCC Exclusive: Avengers Shattered Heroes Panel

Day 2 at New York Comic Con began with a panel featuring the world of Avengers, with all the major architects and writers in attendance (except most notably for Brian Michael Bendis.)

Having arrived a little late, I can't say with certainty what they opened up with, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they spent the first 5 to 10 minutes cheering for Matt Fraction.

What i did catch was the following news items, and some of them are pretty big.



X-Sanction

-The panel teased several pages from the upcoming Cable vs. the Avengers miniseries, with Tom DeFalco giving us the scoop.

-Obviously Cable, featuring prominently in the story, is back from his recent death in Messiah Complex. While they didn't give the specific reasons for his resurrection, DeFalco used the term "returned from the timestream" so it is entirely possible that the Cable we will be seeing is somehow Cable before his death.

-However, his motivation was said to be a Father protecting his Daughter. So, he knows about Hope. perhaps the future timeline whose portal was in fact what killed him is in fact his point of origin for this story, coming back from the evil mutant-less nimrod ruled future of Messiah Complex.

-His goal is to wipe out the Avengers. How that would save Hope is unknown, but the point is, Cable's back, so expect an eventual Hope reunion.

Avengers

-We've been aware for awhile that Cap will be picking out a new line-up for the main Avengers team, and today they revealed one of the major additions:

STORM IS JOINING THE AVENGERS.

Personally, this is by far the biggest comic news that has come out of the con. Storm recently was persuaded to aid Cyclops and rebuff Wolverine's new school, becoming Scott's #2 on Utopia. How she will juggle leading X-Men and being an Avenger is a rational question, but considering Wolverine will be on 6 teams while acting as a Headmaster, we might as well assume Ororo is chock full of free time.
Still, it's Storm. On the Avengers. 'Bout damn time.

Secret Avengers

-They announced that after Warren Ellis, the new ongoing writer will be Rick Remender. This is a fantastic choice, as Remender's work on Uncanny X-Force, a team similar in its premise to Secret Avengers (covert, wetworks, under the radar, proactive, grim, etc.) has been nothing short of fantastic.

-Not only will there be a new writer, starting at issue #21.1, but Remender will debut a new line-up. The image of the new team was full of silhouettes, which garnered justifiable groans from the audience, but not ever character was shaded out. The new leader of the Secret Avengers will be none other than Hawkeye.

- Look to see a more familiar set of villains in this title, specifically an arc with the "New" Masters of Evil.

Avengers Academy

-As previously announced, after Fear Itself, the core group of Avengers Academy, or rather those that survived the big FI war, will be moving to the West Coast and setting up shop in the old West Coast Avengers compound.

-Expect to see more interactions with different Marvel characters, for instance:
        -In #22, Magneto shows up for some requisite Quicksilver, Father/Son interaction.
        -In #23, X-23 joins the team, since X-Men are clearly being encouraged to multitask and join the main Marvel world, and besides, Laura is even more damaged and dangerous than any of the current Academy kids.
         -And last but certainly not least, in issue #27 we get a story arc that brings together the kids of the Avengers Academy and the long unseen Runaways. Christos Gage spoke to his excitement and intimidation at writing these fan-favorite kid heroes, and even disclosed his way into the story: a fan recently reminded him that Victor Mancha of the Runaways, being a construct/son of Ultron, is in fact the grandson of Hank Pym, Ultron's creator and current headmaster of the Academy. Now that's the kind of fanboy continuity the majority of the panel-attendees live for.

Various Solo Titles

-The future of Captain America's title will involve some specific Fear Itself fallout (he's not at his best psychological state at the moment) and will feature a return of the Serpent Society.

-Tanarus, the new God of Thunder, will be written by Fraction. And despite his unrecognizable appearance, he is not only a very popular classic character, but one of the founding Avengers. So he's either a reincarnated/ragnaroked Thor, or a yet-again-mutated Hulk.

-In Fraction's Iron Man, Mandarin returns, and post Fear Itself will give us a story called Demon, dealing with the fallout of Tony getting shitfaced drunk and breaking his sobriety. The question being, if pilots and bus drivers are found drunk on the job, they get fired and blacklisted, so how come Tony gets to keep playing superhero? Also, expect classic Iron Man villains, retooled and released every month.

-Kieron Gillen spoke awhile about Journey Into Mystery, but the audio system was frankly horrible so all I caught was that kid Loki is gone. I assume grown-up Loki returns in time for storylines that will get people excited about the movie next summer, in which Loki seems to play a major role.

-The Thunderbolts went back in time during Fear Itself for some reason (I'm not a reader) and on their way back to the present they will encounter, and fight, 'natch, the original Thunderbolts team.

Q&A

-At this point the panel revealed that they had a couple issues of Fear Itself #7, the finale, out this Wednesday, and brought up a lucky lady, dressed up beautifully in a classic Captain Marvel outfit (the Monica Rambeau one, obviously) to read it quickly behind them and suffer death upon revealing any spoilers. Fraction kindly gave her his chair, and then went off stage to steal a chair from a female volunteer guarding the door, so that chivalrous act didn't really work out so well.

-A 13yo boy asked a simple Thor question, which Fraction answered in one word, and then DeFalco stepped in and brought the kid up to read Fear Itself #7 after Captain Marvel was done. If I haven't been super clear, Fraction didn't come off well during this panel, at least for me, and my suspicions of extreme douchery continue to mount.

-DeFalco stressed the absolute importance of Avengers: Childrens Crusade, saying not only that we will understand clearly the Young Avengers place in the Marvel Universe when the maxiseries is over, but that this story is what will effect, and has already informed, the entirety of large Marvel U stories for the next two years.

-Lastly there was an idle comment about the return of Nova, which I have heard hints and rumors of throughout the weekend but can find no concrete news as to how, why, where, when, and who the hell is actually breaking this development.