Avengers: The Initiative # 1 - Happy Accidents
is an issue published by Marvel that was released on 4 / 4 / 2007Plot Summary
The registration act has passed now all heroes must be trained in order to wear the cape and cowl. A new bus load of recruits come to Stamford, Connecticut to start that training. The big question is do they really know what they signed up for?
Overview
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? Well, 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.
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Happy Accidents
The potential for this series is limitless. With the end of Civil War, comes the 50 State Initiative. 50 teams for 50 states. First all these superheroes need to be registered and trained right? Well that's were this first issue starts. Will the entire series be centered on training these heroes? Who knows. You could have one story arc that centers on the training camp... another that centers on the team that's in Ohio... another on the team in California... and so on... and back to the training camp for all I know. This series should never run out of characters, or situations and it's a great place to test out a new character, or revamp an old one.
I wasn't sure how Dan Slott was going to pull off the first issue here, although not stellar, he did a fine job. The cast includes mostly new characters mixed in with little known ones. I was happy to see Hank Pym and War Machine among the staff at the training facility... the character of The Gauntlet however came of as a stereotypical drill instructor that you've see in boot camp movies over a 100 times before. There isn't anything to like about this character, and he isn't even a good character to hate.
The recruits that the story centers on are mostly new. I found myself liking some of them even though their intro is kept to a bare minimum. Other characters came off as very plain, but there's barely enough time to spend on a single character with the multitude of super powered beings that are introduced in this issue, including the ones we already know. Future characterization on some of these new faces could change everything.
If this first issue is any indication, we can expect anything to happen in this series. There are no team rosters unveiled here, but instead we see people trying to get on to teams, and not all of them are going to make it. This first issue really peaked my curiosity for where this series is headed, even though it didn't blow me away. I think it would be worth checking out for most people since it shows potential to be very different from all the other Marvel team books.
