AVENGERS ACADEMY gets two more… Finesse and Hazmat

Two more ladies show up at the Academy

Avengers Academy Finesse

Avengers Academy Hazmat

I imagine one is very good at doing things without the appearance of difficulty, and one is quite stinky.

Comments

  1. Will there be anyone on the team that we recognize?

  2. I can’t say that Avengers Academy is grabbing my attention a whole lot, what do I know though maybe it will be the best of them all. If so I’ll pick it up in trade.

  3. It’s Doris Day and the Human Bombette

  4. Finesse seem a bit blah but I like the idea of Hazmat.

    Kinda like Radioactive Man but….what are ya gonna do?

  5. Interesting. I like the look of these two. For some reason I’m reminded of the 90’s and the rise of publishers like Malibu, with their new universes and new characters and teams. I think these teases accomplish what they set out to do — make you curious. Finesse could be a "Taskmaster" type of character. And there’s always room for the tragic character who must stay in their containment suit for fear of destroying all they hold dear. The mix on the team seems like it might make for good chemistry. Will readers give ’em a chance? How much weight does the Avengers ‘title’ carry? I admit I didn’t read The Initiative after a few issues, but I’m willing to give this series a shot. I’m curious.

  6. i think the defining characteristics of this book will come down to who teachers are and the way they interact with our rag tag group. You know like it was with the initiative. still terrified this will have a prep school feel to it, definitely liked the intiative’s book camp style

  7. are these two sisters or twins?

    I liked the hazmat from the imperfects better. ( the marvel fighting game)

  8. To be clear, Finesse is saying she can do anything I can do, but to a lesser extent, correct? You’ve come a long way, baby!

  9. @daccampo  I quit ‘Initiative’ after a few issues, too; it just didn’t grab me.  On the other hand, ‘The Order’ was one of my favorite books of the last few years, and that was pretty much all new characters.  I think the idea is a notable and ambitious one — will depend entirely on the execution!

    Also, to put a twist on the conversation, how often have we picked up a book with familiar characters and said, "They aren’t acting like I think they should be acting at all!"  I know it happens to ME, with some frequency — sometimes in good books, sometimes in bad ones.  At some point, you have to shed those preconceptions and just appreciate what the creative team is doing, so what’s really the difference between that and a bunch of original characters?

  10. what a lame book.

     there’s too many characters already.  enough is enough. 

  11. I do like the fact that this team is looking somewhat diverse. Reptil being hispanic and now Hazmat who’s of asian descent.

    Finesse has been done to death already. They’re called Echo and Task Master. Both of whom I wouldn’t mind seeing on a team altogether. Hey now there’s an idea, a martial arts black ops group:

    Mr. X
    Ronin/Barton
    Echo
    Task Master
    Shang Chi
    Iron Fist
    Dare Devil or Elektra (maybe)

    Then Again that sounds like a rehash of Matt Fraction’s Run on Iron Fist.

  12. is their any word on who’s doing the art on this book? Finesse looks kind of like Michael Ryan, but the other images haven’t. and i love Michael Ryan

  13. @ AquaPimp – Not that it makes him memorable, but Reptil appeared at least one of the Avengers Initiative specials about a year back

  14. I loved Radioactive Man in Thunderbolts, and he has unfinished bidness with Mockingbird.  If Hazmat leads to him back in the spotlight Im down!

  15. @ohcaroline – I forgot about The Order. Great point. That series really won me over as well. Though, there were too few of us, apparently. 😉

    @JimmyOlsen – Mike McKone. Series artist.

  16. I think if this book lives up to the title it could be good. These characters don’t seem super compelling as a teen team, and I was never much for most teen teams. But if this book is sort of like Harry Potter but with the Avengers instead of wizards…

  17. @Mangaman – well, the "Taskmaster" thing was a guess on my part. Her quote could just reflect her attitude. Y’never know. Also, I think there are PLENTY of duplicated powers in super-hero universes, so for me it’s all about the character, not the powers.

  18. My favorite thing about comic book readers is how easily they judge and dismiss comics that haven’t even been published yet. I have no problem with people saying things like "I’m not interested in this book" or "the character designs don’t grab me." That’s all perfectly fine and valid. But I’ve noticed that there are a lot of places where these images have been released that people seem to be reviewing the actual book based on a few pieces of promo art. Why is everybody so upset about the idea of new characters? There was a time when nobody heard of Batman or Spider-Man. Give the book a chance to actually exist before you trash it. Is that really that hard?

  19. @JohnVFerrigno: You have a point. I guess some people can’t wait until May. You know what? I hope they have some sort of free preview on free comic book day.

  20. WOW–Good thing Marvel chose to release the names of each of these characters in a separate advertisement and press release! Dear GOD, comicdom NEEDED to receive this information slowly otherwise the SHOCK of it all would have killed us due to over-excitation!

    No, seriously, if you care about this stuff–whatever. If it somehow miraculously turns out to be a good book–great. And in a way I’m certainly happy for anyone who gets anything out of it even if it turns out to be a bad book.

    But all I can do is try to wake people up to how we are in the midsts of the "’90s X-Titles Type Oversaturation" when it comes to anything "Avengers". This looks to be such tripe. These are not fresh ideas. The creators handling this stuff–though not all bad creators by any means–are turning out the most routine and least imaginative work of their careers.

  21. These look better.

  22. Why would I want a super hero that can only do things that I can do better on my own?

  23. @johnvferrigno: I see where you’re coming from, but at some point you just have to learn from history. Otherwise, hey, why haven’t YOU picked up every single Rob Liefeld comic ever? You never know, maybe his art will be genius in one of them, and if you don’t pick them all up and buy EVERY comic, then gosh aren’t you "prejudging" them as not worth your money? No, I think there’s a difference between prejudging and well-reasoned forecasting based on what we’ve seen in the past. We’ve seen things like "Avengers Academy" before–we should be wary of getting taken by a title like this. We’ve seen various companies slap certain hot-at-the-time franchise tags on books, or create another entry in an already-over-expanded franchise, just because it’s what’s hot at the time. And we’ve seen fans get taken time and time again…then fast forward ten years and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of readers with bazillions of copies of things like "Curse of the Spawn" or one of the many, many, many crappy X-title spinoffs, that we’re all left scrating our heads and wondering why we bought them.

    But, hey, I’m HOPING that a title like this will be one of the rare exceptions. By the way, Fraction’s The Order is NOT a good comparison. That title was its own thing, pretty much–it was Fraction’s baby, created by him (and it was a GREAT book). It was NOT a franchise book mandated from the top down like Avengers Academy is. The latter is only given a chance to exist because the frachise is hot and they can squeeze out another "Avengers" title and justify its existence later. But, hey, I HOPE against all likelihood that it turns out to be good.

  24. Finesse might interest me, but these two character types are done to death (Deathstroke, Taskmaster, Lady Shiva; Human Bomb, Damage, Atom Smasher, Chamber, Proteus, etc., etc.). I’m a little less inclined to pick this up, but probably will give it a shot. 

    @RabinRVA Heh! You’re absolutely right, that sentence isn’t grammatically correct. As if someone used the quote from Annie Get Your Gun, then got scared they’d get sued, so reflowed the text except they didn’t think about it.

  25. Haha I meant unfinished bidness with SongBird. :0

  26. Well, at this point in time, I know as much as about these Academic Avengers as I do the Secret Warriors.  It’s going to be a race to see which team will produce a character I can remember. 

  27. The idea of teasers is to create buzz.  I think this title would have been better served with no images.  I think less people might buy this because of the total absence of someone recognizable.  I agree with an earlier comment, it could have been better with some known (Young Avengers, Runaways, some young X-Men) and some of these unknown.  It seems like this book will have to fully depend on getting readers after the book comes out, if there are some good reviews.

  28. @Flapjax

    The Rob Liefeld argument isn’t what I’m referring to at all. Rob Liefeld is a creator with a long history of work behind him. People can make a pretty reasoned prediction on whether they will like the artwork in his next project. Again, if somebody doesn’t like the past work of the creative team on Avengers Academy and that is why they have a negative response to this, that is fine and perfectly valid. It’s the people who are judging this title based solely on promotional shots of brand new characters that I don’t understand. They are denouncing and judging characters that don’t even fully exist yet. I just think people should have the bare minimum of information about something before passing judgement on it. If somebody doesn’t like the creative team, fine. If somebody doesn’t like the concept of heroes in training, that’s fine too. But to pass judgement on every aspect of a story or character based on a single image, and nothing more, is just ignorant. 

  29. This Looks 90’s  The bravado of the motto’s Sounds 90’s

    And that is a criticism that is real popular at the moment, but it sure seems to fit here.

    Of course judgement shoud ultimately be reserved for the finished product- The first issue at least.

     

    But Right now- this looks straight up stu-pid. 

  30. So, basically, Academy is going to be – much like The Initiative before it – based around new characters. The only problem I can forsee is that The Iniative at least had recognised names as trainers. Without that I could see this book struggling a little.

    But I certainly like the idea of new characters being tried out. We don’t see that often enough, these days. And I trust Gage.

  31. I’d rather see the Young Avengers fill this slot.

  32. Instead of creating new characters, why don’t they pull some of those Ultraverse Characters off the shelf. I wouldn’t mind see a book with Prime, Mantra, or Rush.

  33. The last image ought to be Deadpool.  "I’m the merc with a mouth.  I am in Avengers Academy."  In one teaser image, this would go from confusing waste of space to inexplicable cult-favorite.