Heroes Reborn
America's Mightiest Heroes
2021
Heroes Reborn is a Marvel Comics miniseries in which something is wrong with reality, in the tradition of Marvel's Age of Apocalypse and Age of Ultron, or DC's Flashpoint or The Nail.
This time around, someone has changed history to prevent the Avengers from ever forming, and meanwhile, the world, or at least America, is being protected by Marvel's equivalent of the Justice League - Hyperion, Nighthawk, The Blur, Dr Spectrum, and Power Princess.
We get one issue of introduction, one issue each for the ersatz DC heroes, and then a couple more issues for Marvel's Avengers to re-form, save the day, and restore the reality where they normally exist. Blade is the first person to realize what's wrong, and he spends a few pages at the end of each issue re-assembling - unthawing Captain America, sobering up Thor, locating the hidden Black Panther, etc.
Hyperion spends his issue chasing down and recapturing super criminals who escaped the Negative Zone prison, including a Bizarro-like Hulk. He also rescues Peter Parker, who's like his Jimmy Olsen. Nighthawk investigates a breakout at the asylum, fighting mostly Spider-Man villains, plus Bullseye, led by a Green Goblin who acts like the Joker. The Blur goes on a Dr Strange-esque speendrun through the Dark Dimension while fighting a Scarlet Witch who inherited her brother Quicksilver's super speed. Dr Spectrum and his Rainbow Prism go into space and fight a very Lobo-esque Rocket Raccoon. And Power Princess fights a Thor villain while reminiscing about all the other Thor villain's she's killed.
For the most part, these heroes are more disturbing than their DC counterparts, in a way that's probably familiar to anyone who's read or watched an of the dozens of dark, gritty, postmodern superhero deconstructions that've come out over the years. Blur is hyperactive, impatient, and has the memory of a goldfish - his superspeed is like a permanent cocaine high. Hyperion is a Christian nationalist. Dr Spectrum projects amoral American supremacy not only internationally, but into space. Power Princess is just relentlessly bloodthirsty. Nighthawk seems basically okay by comparison.
Anyway, it turns out that the world is like this because someone made a deal with Mephisto to change history this way, but fortunately simply re-assembling a group called The Avengers significantly weakens the artificial construct, which is fortunate. To win, the Avengers just have to beat their counterparts in a fight, and even though we've seen a half-dozen issues of Hyperion's crew making mince-meat out of ultra villains who combine the powers of several ordinary Marvel foes, the new, untrained, hastily gathered Avengers win easily due to being the publisher's favorites.
As far as Justice League pastiches go, this one is decently fun. It was interesting seeing Marvel characters recast into supporting roles for DC. Reimagining Spider-Man foes as Batman villains was probably the best version of this. Blur's alienation simply due to the nature of his power, rather than because he's an authoritarian, was probably the most interesting critical take. Each issue had its own writers and artists, and James Stokoe's visuals in the Dr Spectrum issue stood out as interesting and unique among the others.
This time around, someone has changed history to prevent the Avengers from ever forming, and meanwhile, the world, or at least America, is being protected by Marvel's equivalent of the Justice League - Hyperion, Nighthawk, The Blur, Dr Spectrum, and Power Princess.
We get one issue of introduction, one issue each for the ersatz DC heroes, and then a couple more issues for Marvel's Avengers to re-form, save the day, and restore the reality where they normally exist. Blade is the first person to realize what's wrong, and he spends a few pages at the end of each issue re-assembling - unthawing Captain America, sobering up Thor, locating the hidden Black Panther, etc.
Hyperion spends his issue chasing down and recapturing super criminals who escaped the Negative Zone prison, including a Bizarro-like Hulk. He also rescues Peter Parker, who's like his Jimmy Olsen. Nighthawk investigates a breakout at the asylum, fighting mostly Spider-Man villains, plus Bullseye, led by a Green Goblin who acts like the Joker. The Blur goes on a Dr Strange-esque speendrun through the Dark Dimension while fighting a Scarlet Witch who inherited her brother Quicksilver's super speed. Dr Spectrum and his Rainbow Prism go into space and fight a very Lobo-esque Rocket Raccoon. And Power Princess fights a Thor villain while reminiscing about all the other Thor villain's she's killed.
For the most part, these heroes are more disturbing than their DC counterparts, in a way that's probably familiar to anyone who's read or watched an of the dozens of dark, gritty, postmodern superhero deconstructions that've come out over the years. Blur is hyperactive, impatient, and has the memory of a goldfish - his superspeed is like a permanent cocaine high. Hyperion is a Christian nationalist. Dr Spectrum projects amoral American supremacy not only internationally, but into space. Power Princess is just relentlessly bloodthirsty. Nighthawk seems basically okay by comparison.
Anyway, it turns out that the world is like this because someone made a deal with Mephisto to change history this way, but fortunately simply re-assembling a group called The Avengers significantly weakens the artificial construct, which is fortunate. To win, the Avengers just have to beat their counterparts in a fight, and even though we've seen a half-dozen issues of Hyperion's crew making mince-meat out of ultra villains who combine the powers of several ordinary Marvel foes, the new, untrained, hastily gathered Avengers win easily due to being the publisher's favorites.
As far as Justice League pastiches go, this one is decently fun. It was interesting seeing Marvel characters recast into supporting roles for DC. Reimagining Spider-Man foes as Batman villains was probably the best version of this. Blur's alienation simply due to the nature of his power, rather than because he's an authoritarian, was probably the most interesting critical take. Each issue had its own writers and artists, and James Stokoe's visuals in the Dr Spectrum issue stood out as interesting and unique among the others.
I'm normally skeptical of these big event things, but this one sounds interesting, and I've enjoyed Squadron Supreme stuff in the past (is the "SS" a coincidence?). I might check this out!
ReplyDeleteIf you like the premise, I think they executed it decently. Hope you enjoy!
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