Avengers Academy Retrospective Part 2: Half Cocked Plans

[majingojira]

I know I said it would be a month before part two, but damnit, I'm on spring break and a bit bored. Part 2 comes now and will probably eat my Bandwidth to nothing. 

This posts will cover #7 through 12.  it skips over one extra issue because there's so much going on here.

#7 starts with Hank reminiscing about the past, leading into an awkward conversation with Tigra regarding William, Tigra's son with the Skrull Pym.  Tuns out, it might as well be Hanks, genetically. It's an odd thing to find out. Tigra tries to ask Hank to be Will's Godfather, but it comes out wrong at first.





Hank goes through the various ID's he's had and concludes he was only really accepting of himself as Giant-man.  I post these for two reasons: 1) I love Hank's aside in the last panel, 2) Little William is adorable!

The Academy is given the task of guarding the Absorbing Man (who, when last seen, managed to get some Cosmic Cube fragments to absorb and wrought havoc for the Dark and Mighty Avengers). 



Justice isn't talking about Absorbing Man, but another issue, which he revealed to tigra earlier: he's giving up the Wasp name because he's going to bring Janet back. 

"He tampered in Gods Domain"



Yeah, it wouldn't be much of a story without him escaping now would it.



Reptil and Finesse are stunned, and no one else is coming to help.  And he has a variety of students to absorb.


Crusher!  She's 16 and you're married!


They fight, Pym wins by growing to the "Realm of Abstracts" and stunning Creel's mind mentally.  Before being taken away, he asks Pym to not 'put him under' again, as the constant 'keep this guy unconscious' style of jail is driving him nuts.  Pym makes this:



Overall, a nice return to form for Giant Man.

#8 focuses on Tigra and a lingering plot point involving The Hood.  The whole "Recording assault on video" thing.  A tabloid journalist got their hands on it and leaked a teaser of it online.

The kids find it and then Tigra finds the kids as they watch it.




Tigra calls a meeting about it with Hank and the kids. Striker explains where they found it and then asks if it was real.



"Put him in jail of course"
"What, that's it?"
"Yes. That's it.  That's all we should do.  I don't have unresolved issues on this.  He's in jail, and that's that."

Sums up what happens  following that page.

The kids are told to drop it, but they check in anyway. 



Striker, Veil and Hazmat go and take their own little justice on the Hood, doing to him what he did to Tigra.

Tigra and the others track down the source tape to a guy named the Slug.  Tigra's rather brutal about it.



She did that back in "The Initiative" by the way.  Fun stuff, also by Gage.

Tigra does something positive with her frustrations to show the students.





The Janet van Dyne memorial fund was set up by Hank in Janet's memory during the "Antman and Wasp" mini.  A fun little expansion on it, I thin.  Super Heroes and Charities go hand in hand -- always cool.

Also, Mocked dated references.  Then Striker shows what they uploaded onto Youtube.

IE The Beating of the Hood  by himself and Hazmat (Veil held the camera). 

Tigra's reaction is . . . well . . .



I'm so going to use that as a reaction image. 

As far as she's concerned they just confessed to aggravated assault, and expels the trio on the spot.

That's where #8 ends.



Finesse goes to talk with Quicksilver abut tracking down the Taskmaster or at least his DNA so they can confirm whether or not she is his daughter or not. 

Meanwhile, the teachers have a meeting about the student's actions.



Low blow, Tigra! Low blow!



Ah, Speedball, the voice of reason. 

Meanhwile, Quicksilver and Finesse find what they thought was a decommissioning training facility Tasky was using, only to find that the intel was wrong and it was setting up. They clean house.



Tasky finds Finesse and they have, honestly, a great fight, with them commenting on which warrior they are drawing from (including "Buklseye vs. Daredevil on live tv", "Captain America WWII reels", "I TRAINED WITH THE REAL DEAL!  I DON'T NEED YOUR DAMN NEWSREELS") but I couldn't post much of it without cutting some of the meat.

And Pietro awesomeness.





Finesse and Tasky go to a draw (or, rather, he says he's had his fun and she didn't want to take him in anyway).  Taskmaster talks to her, but can't confirm if he's her father or not and won't give up a DNA sample.



Awww . . .

Later, the new verdict is handed down.



But all is not quite as simple as that.  Later that evening Tigra goes to her room.




The kids aren't the only ones with Issues at Avengers Academy, as the following issue demonstrates in spades.  here, Speedball comes to the forefront. 

But first, the thumbing of its nose at mainstream Marvel begins!




Some see that last line as a Jab at a certain Spider-Man storyline.  I see no reasn why that story line shouldn't be mocked at every turn.

They go to a class on how to rescue people and Viel makes a mistake, lamenting how expelled she's going to be.  Speedball, leading the lesson, tries to calm her down, but she gets a little hysterical.


 

"Stamford.  Oh.  Oh my God, . . . "

Yeah, nice going Veil.

Speedball has moved on pretty well from it and uses the moment to tell them that as a field trip . . . to Stamford. 



Veil is filled with consternation on how to apologize to Speedball about what she said and phases into his room to see him using his penance helmet to cut himself, and runs off.  Pym brings Hazmat a special visitor: Leech. 






They go to meet her parents, but since it's not a permanent cure, it's bittersweet.

Later, the kids visit Stamford.

This is actually a call back to Gage's run with Thunderbolts during Secret Invasion.  Robby, as penance, is surrounded by Skrulls who shapeshift to remind him of Stamford.  Osborn snaps him out of the fear induced catatonia he enters by pointing out that eh memorized the name and face of everyone who died in Stamford, and if he saw any of them there. 

He didn't.

And he blasted the fakes.

Not as cool as Osborn going into a Skrull ship and being confronted with dozens of Skrull Spider-Men.   And just laughing ha is ass off before slaughtering them all.

Then, suddenly, a squad off Cobalt Men appear to attack Robby for what he did at Stamford (The irony is lost on them).  Robby . . . doesn't take it well.

Everyone congratulates Robby on this, but Veil blurts out about what she saw (the cutting) and he says he'll explain it later, as it's not what she thinks.  The cops soon arrive.




I love silent, quiet panels like these.

Robby explains the whole "I need to be in pain for the Penance powers to have, and it's handy to have." thing, but does say that it was stupid of him not to tell anyone. 



Nice to demonstrate that point, Pym.

Because of this, and other reasons, Pym decides to not bring Janet back.  Veil, however, activates it anyway (*Jesus, the girl just cannot leave well enough alone) and the being that was the Infinite Mansion is revealed.  And it's not Janet.   After quicksilver gets the naked lady a shirt . . .



It's Kovac.




The Avengers show up in a damn cool 2 page spread and start to fight Korvac.


Hazmat speaks the truth. The true heart of Academy is starting to show.

Backstory is told, but honestly, the pages here tell you all you really need to know about the situation. 

Carina says that the Avengers are going to lose unless the kids go back and help them.  Only they can stop Korvac. 


Mettle gets in on the 4th wall leaning

The Avengrs have a pretty cool battle against Korvac, but lose.  Our Bouncing Buddy Speedball is the last one left standing, and Korvac asks him to stand down.



That's when Carina comes in, with the kids . . . in their adult bodies.



Moments earlier, she gave them these new bodies and  . . . they were somewhat horrified.




And all the kids get a chance to show off what they could be to one degree or another.  Striker with heavy duty Lightning, Reptil turning into a T-Rex . . .




Striker's soon rpelaced with another future body (same mind), but he just DIED here so he does the smart thing and runs for it.  It's up to Veil and Hazmat to bring Korvac down for good.



Veil Possesses Korvac for a few moments as Hazmat readies the final strike.



And with a mighty blast, Korvac is dissipated once again, screaming how they'd need him to stop 'what's coming'.  Ominous, fearful even.

Carina returns the kids to their normal bodies (except for Reptil, for reasons she can't yet explain)

Veil used the brief time she had 'control' over Korvac to fix herself so that, while she'd still eventually turn into a gas critter, she won't die because of it.  Carina and Pym have a little talk afterwards.



And Janet ends up revived through . . . was that ever explained, beyond "Not really dead, just hiding?"

Closing out this segment, we have this little bit:




Daww.  They're so sad. 

In the next installment, we get the Interlude.  A Prom, a graduate, the Sinister Six and a villain that's currently being over hyped. 

After that: FEAR ITSELF.

Comments

[silverhammerman]

I really like what they did with Speedball here. It's cool to see a teen hero who's actually been allowed to grow up, even if he spent a long time out of the spotlight and as a massive screwup. Thanks for including those scans.
Also pretty great to see someone actually do the sensible thing and have Leech come in to help out with Hazmat. And it's great that they acknowledge how monumentally fucked up Tigra and Hank's baby thing is, while still moving past it fairly quickly and not letting drag things down.
I'm not sure I like the students though. I think if I'd been reading this and had context for the characters they'd come off better, but boy are those kids surly. Out of context they come off as kind of jerks. And their constant cynicism and lampshade hanging grates on me. We all know this stuff is cliche, but it's a convention of the genre, and frankly I'm much more tired of lampshading these things than I am of the things that are actually being lampshaded.
Still, I like most of what I'm seeing here and when the kids are likable enough when they're not being jerks to each other.

[mrstatham]

Given the circumstances by which these kids are where they are, though, I don't blame them for being surly. Hazmat in particular has a raw deal, I'm surprised that Mettle is as optimistic as he is, and Finesse is meant to be a jerk because of the way her mind works. I personally found it a little bit refreshing to have characters that felt honest and a little bit more real in terms of their problems. It does, however, work a lot better in context, I think. Some of the better pages have been picked out here, but.. Well, let's be honest - kids are as capable of being jerks as everyone else. And not all of them are jerks.

[lucky_gamble]

That final scene x,,,(

[blunderbuss]

Holy shit. That whole segment with Tigra on Not!Oprah's show ... that has to be the most hardcore thing I have ever seen. She still proves that she's a flawed person in the rest of those scans, but holy balls, Tigra's just shot up my list of the most fucking badass and amazing women in comics from that scene alone. Way to take an attempt to victimize you and nuke it from orbit.

Since the monthly theme is about awesome female heroines, maybe someone should do one on her?

[razsolo]

I heart Tigra, and I think this series is the best thing that has happened to her since Roger Stern.

So impressed with the way she, Hank and Pietro were handled in Avengers Academy. Actually I always kind of thought Tigra and Pietro would make an interesting couple, ever since their very brief period together in WCA. They seem to share some kind of snarkiness that neither of them have with any other character.

On another note, the Korvac story was really the low point with this series IMO. It was the one storyline where I really felt the kids were props more than anything else...there were definitely some key character points in there, but I think they could have been better achieved. Aside from that, I loved Avengers Academy. I don't hold much hope for the ones that are in Arena, but I really hope we get to see Finesse and Lightspeed again as well as the others. :)

[turtlefu]

I have HUGE issues with the way that the whole kids beating up The Hood thing was handled. So that kind of got in the way of me enjoying it because everyone keeps on saying "Kids need to learn consequences, but kicking them out won't do anything." But... we never see them get any sort of consequence (or at least on pair with aggravated assault and then taping and disseminating it)

[mrstatham]

The thing is, threatening some of them with being kicked out would have been downright cruel in some cases - like Veil's, who at the time was still going to die eventually, without help - and in others, it simply wouldn't endear the kids to the teachers and would nudge them that much closer to the supervillain status the Avengers already feared the kids would have, thanks to Osborn. I figured that the three involved were punished on the side, but Gage got his point across with the story he told.

Plus, yes they did do entirely the wrong thing, but I would love to see the results of someone stupid enough to dare try and prosecute these kids for what they did to the Hood, given the list of crimes to his name.

[majingojira]

Doing a quick google, at most, they would get a 5 year probation (minimum for probation retarding this sort of thing in NY) and a fine given the circumstances.

[mrstatham]

*shrugs*

Again, I see very few people being willing to stand up for the Hood, or the Hood coming forward and claiming he got beaten up by a bunch of kids, which would ruin his rep even more than it was already ruined at the time. I'm still not saying what the kids did was right, but in this case the Hood did and still does deserve worse than what they did. The kids just had no right being a part of it, and.. Well, I'm still of the mind they got punished in some way off-screen, but who wants to read a book about the kids on probation or doing community service or whatever?

Edit: Actually, thinking about it, I think I'd rather read a Gage-written book about the AA kids doing community service over the hot mess that Arena clearly is.

[majingojira]

Isn't super hero work community service anyway.

Unless . . . *pictures Hazmat in a soup kitchen*

Nah, that's just asking for trouble.

[turtlefu]

That's the problem I hate with how juvenile crime is handled, and this is coming from personal experience. People act like there are only two options: drop the book on them, effectively "giving up" and guaranteeing they are going to turn out bad, or give them barely a slap on the wrist so that you don't push them into being criminals.

I would have preferred to see some kind of actual, effective punishment, because what is on the page is basically "How dare you! Expelled. Oops, never mind, lesson learned".

Also "Kids do stupid things" is an awful excuse for something like this.

[mrstatham]

Again, 'actual and effective' punishment in what sense? Because that could take up pages that people just wouldn't be interested in reading, frankly. The probation and threat Tigra suggests, to me, is probably about as much as you could expect from a superhero comic, plus the kids have the threat of expulsion looming overhead should they do anything like this again. So they're at least trying to make sure this doesn't happen again.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, I did not like how they handled that. Expelling them might be too far, but given that the kids went and did pretty much exactly the kind of "rules don't apply to us" stuff that they're at the academy to be steered away from, their punishment doesn't seem like enough.
At the very least I don't think that "assaulted a man, taped it, then posted it online" is something that should be handled strictly in house, since it's an actual crime, no matter how unlikeable the victim. Then again, assaulting unlikeable dudes is pretty much what superheroes do.... Still though.

[starwolf_oakley]

You know what REALLY bugged me about the Hood beating up Tigra? We were supposed to think she deserved it for going against Cap during CIVIL WAR. Maybe that's not what Bendis was going for, but it felt that way.

Also, I dig Quicksilver mentioning "Magneto put Wanda and me in sitatuions where we would rescue humans, the humans would turn against us, and Magneto would 'save' us and say humans are bad." There was something SORT of like this in the short-lived PROFESSOR X AND THE X-MEN 99 cent series, but I'll have to look it up.

[mrstatham]

I don't think Bendis meant it that way at all. The scene of her getting beaten up was, as I recall, pretty darn disturbing and yet played more with that old cliche of 'beating up a B-Lister to prove your character's a threat'. So I don't think Bendis intended it the way you suggest, and I don't particularly recall many people feeling that way when the issue came out.

[starwolf_oakley]

Guess it was just me that thought "See what happens when you spy on Captain America?" not that I thought Tigra deserved it. Everyone was pretty mad, as I remember. Nothing about Civil War karma comeuppance, though.

[beoweasel]

GAAAAAAH.

The more I read about Mettle and Hazmat, the more I like them, which is pissing me off, because I know they die in Arena! :|

[mrstatham]

Hazmat's not dead. Although she might as well be, given the complete nonsense Hopeless has her rattling off.

[majingojira]

And they aren't even a couple officially yet in this retrospective.

[dr_archeville]

I definitely need to get these.

My one issue from this: the Skrulls knew about Stamford & Speedball/Penance's role in it, but didn't know what any of the victims looked like?

[majingojira]

That happened in Thunderbolts #124. They were Skrull Foot soldiers, so I suspect they didn't know the full details.

[cainofdreaming]

Still hating the Taskmaster amnesia-retcon. Though at least here it was used for good effect.

[shadowpsykie]

fear itself was the storyline that made me LOVE this series.


that is all....

[majingojira]

Same here. It hurts to have to put it off for so long. Objectively, it's my favorite arc. Emotionally, I'm a sucker for the Runaways crossover.

[beyondthefringe]

I love Hazmat's future outfit, where she looks like she's wearing a koala on her head.

Actually, I just love Hazmat in general, especially the few times when we see her out of the suit. There's just something about her, as drawn here. Tough, yet vulnerable.

One of the things I loved about the series as a whole was that the art tended to be pretty good, and all three of the female students - Hazmat, Veil, and Finesse - possessed unconventional attractiveness without being beautiful... and so very distinct from one another. Not like, say, Greg Land, where everyone has the same porn face going on. (Though that reminds me, if I had a scanner, I'd share a page from the most recent Iron Man, which made me laugh and laugh and laugh.)

[featheredserpent]

Killraven? Killraven?!? This series is giving me more 70's flashbacks than LSD.

[grazzt]

I never got Striker's paranoia over ending up as the future self that got killed. All he would have to do to avoid it is not grow that stupid goatee.

[cainofdreaming]

What if he grew a full beard and someone shaved him up like that the night before his body went back as a joke?

Better get it all lasered off to be on the safe side, I say.

[grazzt]

You're right, it's the only safe solution.