Today is Avengers: The Initiative #8-12With the Initiative recruits having decided to battle the Hulk themselves, Gyrich sent in the Shadow Initiative to get them out, composed of Constrictor, Bengal, Trauma, the mysterious Mutant Zero and the Scarlet Spiders. They were successful in doing so though Trauma ended up injured during his fight with the Hulk (and Thor Girl seemed in awe when he turned into Thor). The Scarlet Spiders, three guys in Iron Spider suits, turned out to all be clones of MVP named Michael, Van and Patrick (and the MVP Justice and Cloud 9 saw was another clone) created by the Initiative. The Gauntlet was later on found brutally beaten and severely injured and though he claimed his assailant was someone like Ghost, in truth he was covering up that it was Slapstick, another Initiative recruit who'd taken umbrage with Gauntlet's disparagement of the New Warriors.We also learned that Senator Woodman, the person that Hardball had been working for, was really a Hydra agent and was ready to try and recruit Hardball as a double agent. All this and it was revealed that the Revolutionary, leader of Pennsylvania's Initiative team the Liberteens, was in fact a skrull and that the skrulls had a plan to use place one of their own in every Initiative team. The Secret Invasion was coming...Previous >>154687480
>>154701051Who let Etrigan in
>Eric O'GradyPretty well known at this point. He's going to stick around for most of the rest of the series and this book is where his friendship with Taskmaster starts.>CrusaderFrom Kirkman's Marvel Team-Up, is really a Skrull.>Melee, GeldoffNew characters>Dragon LordOnly previous appearance was Marvel Spotlight vol. 2 #5 back in 1979.>GeigerA character from a Doc Samson mini Slott did in the '90s.>Red 9One off character from Amazing Spider-Man #264.>DiamondbackI have no idea why she'd be with the scrubs and newbies. Maybe this was a way to backdoor her into the book because by the Dark Reign portions she's going to become one of the central characters.
>>154701173what a dick
Sorry, it's started storming and my internet went out for a few minutes. If there's any interruptions that's why.
>>154701219Yeah that's O'Grady's whole thing. He was called the Irredeemable Ant-Man for a reason.
Komodo's big secrent: she ain't gots no shins (or legs).
Issue 9
Thor Girl's an alien, not an actual Asgardian, so I don't think Asgard falling would affect her powers. Not that it matters.Dani's written out to go join back up with the New Mutants as part of Guggenheim's shitty Young X-Men book, then later on New Mutants vol. 3.
>>154701146God, I love O'Grady. Irredeemable Ant-Man is probably my favorite work from Kirkman.
>>154701613I feel like guys like him or Taskmaster are kind of easy to write in the sense that it's pretty simple to go with the whole normal guy way out of their league thing and have it work and connect with the reader. Gage uses that to effectiveness a few times in this series like the Siege story or the Johnny Guitar issue.
Aaaand Dragon Lord is gone and given that he's so obscure there's zero chance he ever comes back.
Issue 10
A retcon of course. Slapstick and Ultragirl were never New Warriors previously.
From then on, they were bros.
The big death in this issue is... one of the MVP clones.
>>154701487Crusaders story was sad.
>>154701938I can't think of a single person who likes or has ever given a shit about Delroy Garrett.
Initiative was a better New Warriors book than the actual New Warriors book that was running at the same time.
Issue 11
>>154701146The start of a beautiful friendship
The heck is this Taskmaster mask? Go back.
>>154701257Man, they never let the giant forms be impressive but I don't mind letting Taskmaster be cool at least.
>>154701927Poor Frank, though he gets his arms back later....then he gets cancer....but he gets better
>>154702421Yeah but Schultz made him a racist for some retarded reason. Probably related to the fact that she's a bad writer.
>>154702421And then he gets rewritten to be a generic bad guy again, fate worse then death
Unfortunately this last page goes nowhere. I don't know if it was intended to and just forgotten when the book gets caught up in Secret Invasion and then Dark Reign changes the direction a lot or if it was just an intentional red herring because Slapstick is wacky.
>>154702455>>154702448Yeah shit fuckings sucks man, Christos Gage yet again will have to do so much work to salvage that IF he gets to write Constrictor again. The part that pissed me off the most is the implication cause he faked his death that he let Diamondback the woman he loves go into debt and throw her life away. That is the absolute most OOC part of it to me.
Issue 12
>>154702716This is probably the strangest depiction of Taskmaster's mask, looks like a Scooby doo villain.
This plot point with Trauma will get resolved eventually but not until near the end of the series.
>>154702793I really like how well he takes losing the arms. Honestly Constrictor is such an underrated Marvel character, dude has fought everyone and has some great interactions with other villains or Heroes.
Cloud 9 and Hardball got some absolutely horrendous costumes. At least Abby gets a better one but Hardball's not so lucky. I don't like Ultragirl with the old Ms. Marvel outfit either and I'm pretty sure she switches back after Secret Invasion.
That finishes up for today. After this the Initiative will be getting into Secret Invasion but we'll hold up on that for a bit because next time it's Runaways vol. 3 #1-4.
>>154701301Would you rather no legs or lizards?
>>154703023I would bang the lizard form 100%
>>154702405>He won't harm me>He met me once and has wanted to clap my cheeks ever since>He can't pound my ass if he obliterates it
>>154703296She basically knows h's still a guy so she's playing the role of seductress to get him drop his guard. Which is a far cry from the mousey girl she was in issue 1. She went in a sweet girl who wanted to fly and left a jaded young woman willing to use sex and violence. Small wonder she effectively retired, or tried to, after the Initiative was shut down.
>>154703066Gross
>>154689082All are Spider-Woman villains. Although Flying Tiger is white for some reason.
>>154704732Well Spider-Woman took place in San Francisco so it makes sense. Gage used some of them in Superior as well which also took place in San Francisco.
>>154704767Brothers Grimm are a bit funny. The originals were the soul of a one-shot Iron Man enemy in doll bodies, and the replacement ones using the suits with new flesh bodies were introduced in Iron Man (Rhodey edition). But I don't think anyone would tall them Iron Man villains.
>>154702920And he changes his codename because...? Didn't do it when he went full 3D earlier.
>>154705407Likely wasn't his choice but the Initiative's.
>>154702955thank ye
>>154703023Or?
>>154702955I randomly read through this run semi-recently, I have no memory why, and this page really stuck with me. It's the entire encapsulation of the tragedy of the Initiative right there. There's not an obvious page from her introduction to contrast with it, in terms of impact. This one is fine, but there's the other one where she was nervously trying to explain herself to the guy literally called Warmachine.Probably one of Slott's best moments, which does a lot for my opinion of him after knowing him only for being considered history's greatest monster for his Spider-Man run.
>>154707542And a quick check through previous threads makes it clear it might have been Gage. Still, he's got other, okayish, work.Like you guys said, probably had the idea then Gage cleaned it up to make it actually hit right.
