Post by goldenfist on Dec 10, 2009 20:49:35 GMT -5
Avengers Reassembled: How a Franchise Was Made a Flagship
The word "franchise" is thrown around a lot in comic books, but if there's one property over the last five years that has evolved in a way that has earned the "franchise" label, it's The Avengers.
In December 2004, Marvel launched a complete overhaul of the existing Avengers comic book series, giving the title to the writer who had launched the publisher's Ultimate universe four years earlier, Brian Michael Bendis.
"That was a major turning point in not just Avengers history, but Marvel Comics history," said Dan Slott, who currently writes Mighty Avengers and helped launch The Avengers: The Initiative in 2007. "The team that took the name Avengers five years ago, with Wolverine and Spider-Man and the biggest guns and Brian's favorite characters – that became the flagship book not just for Marvel, but that became the flagship book for comics. And it stayed there for so long. That speaks to the genius behind that move."
As controversial as the Avengers relaunch was at the time, Slott isn't the only one who recognizes its success. Not only are there currently four Avengers titles, but one or two are usually among the top-sellers each month.
And since the 2004 revamp of the franchise, the Avengers titles have played a central role almost every one of the publisher's major events, including the upcoming Siege mini-series that promises to alter the status quo of the Marvel Universe once again.
"We're still in the top 10 with New Avengers five years later," Bendis told Newsarama. "Once that happened, and once the word 'franchise' started getting bandied around in meetings, I knew it was only a matter of time before there were other teams and spin-offs.
"We just had to make sure we didn't move too fast and that we continued to treat the Avengers franchise like the A-list team I always imagined it should be," said Bendis, who is also acting as consultant on Marvel's plans for The Avengers film, set to be released in 2012.
In the first part of a series of articles looking at the Avengers franchise – from its relaunch five years ago to the upcoming changes in Siege to the promises of The Avengers movie – Newsarama talked to some of the key players in the Avengers success about what makes this team unique.
"You know, I think about it an awful lot, about what makes the Avengers unique among all the other superhero teams," Bendis said. "Fantastic Four is a family, and the X-Men are all related by a similar cause. But The Avengers are there because they all believe in the same thing."
That belief, Bendis said, is that there needs to be a group that stands together to fight the foes the members can't fight individually. "Captain America believes in the idea in the Avengers. Tony Stark believes in it so much that he's willing to pay for it. Thor believes in it so much that he's willing to hang out with these guys," he said.
"When I sit down and write them, I just remember the initial pitch: Heroes banded together to fight foes they couldn't fight on their own. And you don't get any more complicated than that," Bendis said. "And I think the writers who have stuck to that have created some really unique Marvel stories."
The writer said it's also an honor to be asked to join the elite teams like the Justice League and the Avengers. "It's much like when ballplayers get asked to be in the Yankees," he said. "Or I know a lot of my friends, when they're asked to write for DC or Marvel Comics, they feel like an honor's been bestowed upon them and they have to deliver. I see people like Clint Barton respond to the Avengers like that."
However, there are a few differences between the Justice League and the Avengers, including what former Avengers writer Kurt Busiek calls the distinction between the word "league" and the word "team."
"Classically, at least, the JLA was a league and the Avengers was a team," Busiek said, "by which I mean that the JLA was an alliance of solo heroes who came together as needed, but whose first priority was their solo responsibilities, the various cities they protected in the ordinary course of their careers. And the Avengers was a team, one that focused primarily on working together (and often living together) with a few members who had solo responsibilities, but not the bulk of the team."
Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort agreed, adding that the Justice League's focus is getting the job done while the Avengers comics tend to focus on the group's relationship as a team.
"Typically, there's a crisis in the world, the Justice League comes together in the (pick one) satellite, moon base, cave in Rhode Island, then they deal with the mission, pat each other on the back and go home, whereas the Avengers tend to all stay more or less together," said Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, who oversees Avengers titles. "There are guys that come and go – Cap's not there all the time, and Iron Man usually isn't there all the time – but they tend to congregate in one place, whether that's a mansion or a tower or an apartment in Brooklyn. It seems to be a lot more about the personal interplay and the relationships between those characters than it is simply the big mission of the day.
"The Avengers somehow, in some intangible way, is closer to a sports
team in that sort of way. They live together, they work together, they fight together," Brevoort said. "This is just my opinion, but the Justice League is sort of more like a lodge where once a week they get together and have a meeting and eat some ribs and punch the Injustice Gang out. On its most basic level, it's the same kind of concept. It's all your big characters together in one comic or on one team."
Slott said what really makes the Avengers unique is what makes the Marvel Universe itself unique. "Marvel books have a certain feel to them. It's the magic of Stan and Jack," he said. "If you look at Justice League, you get this feeling like, if suddenly someone turned out the lights, if the characters didn't say something like 'Great Krypton' or 'Great Hera' you wouldn't know who was speaking, because they're all these perfect icons," Slott said. "Each guy is a very quintessential hero. In the Marvel universe, they aren't untouchable icons. These guys have more flavor and feel more familiar and down-to-earth.
"Also, Rick Jones could kick Snapper Carr's ass," he laughed.
"I think the difference is in approach more than anything," Brevoort added. "The Marvel style is that it's the guys in the costumes rather than the costumes and the powers that's important; the classic DC style was always that it's the costumes and the powers that are important."
"Whatever differences there are just shows you the Marvel universe is a little more 'real-world,'" Bendis said. "The dynamic of the characters is just different. DC has their language and their world, and the way things go there. They have the fake cities and all of it. And that's great."
The writer said that if there are two books that are of the same type, it's Justice League and the Avengers. "I think that's why I'm so drawn to them. It just seems to be a never-ending amount of different types of stories you can tell from that simple idea of banding these heroes together," he said.
The word "franchise" is thrown around a lot in comic books, but if there's one property over the last five years that has evolved in a way that has earned the "franchise" label, it's The Avengers.
In December 2004, Marvel launched a complete overhaul of the existing Avengers comic book series, giving the title to the writer who had launched the publisher's Ultimate universe four years earlier, Brian Michael Bendis.
"That was a major turning point in not just Avengers history, but Marvel Comics history," said Dan Slott, who currently writes Mighty Avengers and helped launch The Avengers: The Initiative in 2007. "The team that took the name Avengers five years ago, with Wolverine and Spider-Man and the biggest guns and Brian's favorite characters – that became the flagship book not just for Marvel, but that became the flagship book for comics. And it stayed there for so long. That speaks to the genius behind that move."
As controversial as the Avengers relaunch was at the time, Slott isn't the only one who recognizes its success. Not only are there currently four Avengers titles, but one or two are usually among the top-sellers each month.
And since the 2004 revamp of the franchise, the Avengers titles have played a central role almost every one of the publisher's major events, including the upcoming Siege mini-series that promises to alter the status quo of the Marvel Universe once again.
"We're still in the top 10 with New Avengers five years later," Bendis told Newsarama. "Once that happened, and once the word 'franchise' started getting bandied around in meetings, I knew it was only a matter of time before there were other teams and spin-offs.
"We just had to make sure we didn't move too fast and that we continued to treat the Avengers franchise like the A-list team I always imagined it should be," said Bendis, who is also acting as consultant on Marvel's plans for The Avengers film, set to be released in 2012.
In the first part of a series of articles looking at the Avengers franchise – from its relaunch five years ago to the upcoming changes in Siege to the promises of The Avengers movie – Newsarama talked to some of the key players in the Avengers success about what makes this team unique.
"You know, I think about it an awful lot, about what makes the Avengers unique among all the other superhero teams," Bendis said. "Fantastic Four is a family, and the X-Men are all related by a similar cause. But The Avengers are there because they all believe in the same thing."
That belief, Bendis said, is that there needs to be a group that stands together to fight the foes the members can't fight individually. "Captain America believes in the idea in the Avengers. Tony Stark believes in it so much that he's willing to pay for it. Thor believes in it so much that he's willing to hang out with these guys," he said.
"When I sit down and write them, I just remember the initial pitch: Heroes banded together to fight foes they couldn't fight on their own. And you don't get any more complicated than that," Bendis said. "And I think the writers who have stuck to that have created some really unique Marvel stories."
The writer said it's also an honor to be asked to join the elite teams like the Justice League and the Avengers. "It's much like when ballplayers get asked to be in the Yankees," he said. "Or I know a lot of my friends, when they're asked to write for DC or Marvel Comics, they feel like an honor's been bestowed upon them and they have to deliver. I see people like Clint Barton respond to the Avengers like that."
However, there are a few differences between the Justice League and the Avengers, including what former Avengers writer Kurt Busiek calls the distinction between the word "league" and the word "team."
"Classically, at least, the JLA was a league and the Avengers was a team," Busiek said, "by which I mean that the JLA was an alliance of solo heroes who came together as needed, but whose first priority was their solo responsibilities, the various cities they protected in the ordinary course of their careers. And the Avengers was a team, one that focused primarily on working together (and often living together) with a few members who had solo responsibilities, but not the bulk of the team."
Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort agreed, adding that the Justice League's focus is getting the job done while the Avengers comics tend to focus on the group's relationship as a team.
"Typically, there's a crisis in the world, the Justice League comes together in the (pick one) satellite, moon base, cave in Rhode Island, then they deal with the mission, pat each other on the back and go home, whereas the Avengers tend to all stay more or less together," said Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, who oversees Avengers titles. "There are guys that come and go – Cap's not there all the time, and Iron Man usually isn't there all the time – but they tend to congregate in one place, whether that's a mansion or a tower or an apartment in Brooklyn. It seems to be a lot more about the personal interplay and the relationships between those characters than it is simply the big mission of the day.
"The Avengers somehow, in some intangible way, is closer to a sports
team in that sort of way. They live together, they work together, they fight together," Brevoort said. "This is just my opinion, but the Justice League is sort of more like a lodge where once a week they get together and have a meeting and eat some ribs and punch the Injustice Gang out. On its most basic level, it's the same kind of concept. It's all your big characters together in one comic or on one team."
Slott said what really makes the Avengers unique is what makes the Marvel Universe itself unique. "Marvel books have a certain feel to them. It's the magic of Stan and Jack," he said. "If you look at Justice League, you get this feeling like, if suddenly someone turned out the lights, if the characters didn't say something like 'Great Krypton' or 'Great Hera' you wouldn't know who was speaking, because they're all these perfect icons," Slott said. "Each guy is a very quintessential hero. In the Marvel universe, they aren't untouchable icons. These guys have more flavor and feel more familiar and down-to-earth.
"Also, Rick Jones could kick Snapper Carr's ass," he laughed.
"I think the difference is in approach more than anything," Brevoort added. "The Marvel style is that it's the guys in the costumes rather than the costumes and the powers that's important; the classic DC style was always that it's the costumes and the powers that are important."
"Whatever differences there are just shows you the Marvel universe is a little more 'real-world,'" Bendis said. "The dynamic of the characters is just different. DC has their language and their world, and the way things go there. They have the fake cities and all of it. And that's great."
The writer said that if there are two books that are of the same type, it's Justice League and the Avengers. "I think that's why I'm so drawn to them. It just seems to be a never-ending amount of different types of stories you can tell from that simple idea of banding these heroes together," he said.
) who supports my hobby, she even picks up my books at thhe LCS for me!
.