It can be hard to keep up with all the comics you love. But it’s damn near impossible to keep up with all the comics you’re interested in.
Retcon Punch got you covered.
Jonathan Hickman has been ramping up to some world-altering shit. We’ll be digging into Infinity with zeal, but it means catching up with both Avengers and New Avengers. We started our coverage of the bi-weekly Avengers with issue 11, and if you want to join us there – here’s a video recap to get you all situated.
Retcon Punch 
A FIGHT ENSUES
I think this would be an excellent name for a documentary on comic books or something
It is the line we write most frequently when doing these things. ALWAYS WITH THE FIGHTING!
I just wanted to say the cram session was far more entertaining than anything Hickman has done with the Avengers. The only reason I’m sticking around with it is to see what he does with all the old New Universe characters since I collected them all back in the ’80s.
Glad you liked it! We had a hell of a good time putting it together. I like to think that we’re just exaggerating the wackiness inherent in the issues, but there’s definitely a specific mysterious tone that I can see being off-putting. Hell, I’m put off half of the time, it’s just that the other half has me fascinated. I stand by issue 11 as good clean fun, regardless of its significance in the mythology.
Are you all familiar with the source material for Starbrand and The NIghtmask? It hasn’t been brought up by you guys, so I was wondering. I’m really hoping we see some of the other characters from way back when.
No — I don’t know any of that stuff. Nightmask rattled off a few other heralds that might have been created by the white event, but we haven’t heard anything about them since. I’m sure those will play a key role going forward, but I’d certainly be curious to check out the source material. New Universe, you say?
The New Universe was a failed Marvel line back in the late ’80s. They had about 8 titles and each title was supposed to work in real time – what happened in one comic happened in one month. The story went like this:
There was a normal world without super heroes. A white event occurred. This event caused some people to develop powers. The comics were (and I might forget one or two):
Starbrand: very powerful, I think he blew up Pittsburgh.
Nightmask: about a boy in a wheel chair that fights villains in his dreams.
Marc Hazard, MERC: I don’t remember this at all except it was about a soldier.
Kickers, Inc: I think a football team got super powers.
DP 7: A group of strangers with various powers got recruited to a medical center to be cured. Instead, the medical center was evil and they escaped and fighting ensued. The powers were varied: One guy got big and strong, another guy had some sort of spirit shadow that flew out of him to do stuff, one guy disintegrated stuff with his touch, one guy was really fast, one lady healed people and another lady’s skin caused people to faint, so she wore a mask.
Justice: About some alien that came to earth delivering umm…. justice, I think.
Psi-Force: Five psychic kids that can group together to make a psychic big monster.
Spitfire and the Troubleshooters. A kid stole her dads armor suit and. . . that’s all I remember.
They were terrible, nobody bought them (except me), but they all had some spark of something that made them at least kind of interesting. Apparently Hickman is going to overlap some of the New Universe into the Marvel Universe. So, I read along and want to see if more of the New Universe actually arrives. I want Justice to come along and find Captain America guilty.
Instead, I get Sunball and Cannonfire playing drinking games with AIM. I think I’d have liked this comic if it were in Secret Avengers (which has been very good).
This is fascinating: thanks, Kaif, it provides some background I think most of us were sorely lacking.
Personally, I think Starbrand and the issues featuring him were the least interesting part of this entire run so far, but I can see why you have a particular interest in them. I do hope that when we return to the White Event characters, the Avengers are still allowed to play a significant role in the story. It felt like Starbrand was going to push them out of their own book for a while there.
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