Comic Book Junction

In Avengers The Initiative #21-22, the Initiative crew is still dealing with the fallout from “Secret Invasion” (a.k.a. “Dark Reign”), and everybody seems to be going their separate ways (or ending up dead!). The book that I once considered to be more of a “spiritual” relation to the old New Warriors series than the new New Warriors series has taken, as of late, a decidedly more “Avengery” turn. Or, with the addition of characters such as Hellcat and Gargoyle, a more “Defendery” turn.

Christos Gage has done an admirable job picking up where the talented Dan Slott left off in the series, with a good degree of Initiative’s initial quirkiness intact. Humbert Ramos’ art works far better here than I would have expected, and infuses the book with a new life. And a crazy cyborg/clone Thor speaking in a godlike font, fighting a crazy old Nazi dude, and smashing everything with his hammer? Like Humbug, always good for a laugh.

But now that the Initiative has been, in some way, “disassembled” by new SHIELD director Norman Osborn, you have wonder what’s the next direction for the team — and the book. What is the identity of each now? Will the focus be taken off the young recruits and placed upon on Avengers like Tigra & Hellcat? Will the mentors-and-recruits formula that worked for much of the series continue, rendering the title a more edgy version of Young Avengers?

By the end of issue #22, one gets the feeling that the answer might lie, at least temporarily, again with a teen team book from the early 1990s…