In the wake of the Skrull invasion of Earth, Norman Osborn leveraged his status as the man who killed Veranke into near total control through his S.H.I.E.L.D. replacement organization H.A.M.M.E.R. He appoints the Hood as head of the Initiative who supplies "reformed" villains to fill team rosters to the increasing disgust of the New Warriors -- now calling themselves the Avengers Resistance -- and the heroes still with the Initiative. Tigra proceeds to take revenge for the Hood's brutalization of her by going after his men while the Heavy Hitters eventually have enough and leave the Initiative. At the same time, Trauma had been made to lie to Penance to keep him in line and the guilt allowed Nightmare to manifest in the physical world through him, attacking both the Initiative and the Resistance.The restoration of Penance's memories turned the tide however and Nightmare eventually retreated. Constrictor had started a relationship with Diamondback who turned out to be a mole for the Resistance while Taskmaster's work led to Osborn naming him the new head of the Initiative and offering him a spot on his Cabal... just in time for Osborn's invasion of Asgard.Today is Avengers: The Initiative #32-35.Previous >>154829136
This last story arc is basically four issues of Taskmaster and Constrictor realizing they are way out of their league.
This whole thing is, I assume, an attempt to regard a stupid bit in Siege where Bendis had Diamondback among the villains who took down Thor which was a.) OOC and b.) what the hell is she going to do to Thor? So in the tie-in it's literally the opposite where she's going to help him but is too indecisive to do anything and gets there just as he's taken down.
Issue 33>>154852118>to regardTo explain rather.
The infamous moment where Ares gets ripped in half. It really is kind of amazing how violent 2000s comics were yet somehow escaped the extreme and edgy labels.
>>154851999God, I love Tasky. This era was spectacular for him, getting to finally be the big man on campus.Everyone has to be forever evergreen in comics unfortunately, but if anybody's earned their golden parachute, I think it's this guy. He really is nine times out of ten the most 'professional' bad guy in 616 from a pure morality perspective. Makes me wonder why they never just had Tony hire him as a trainer when he's not running S.H.I.E.L.D., it's not like he wouldn't take the cash.
Issue 34
>>154852519He had his own miniseries and got to be in MvC3 too. For whatever reason they were giving Taskmaster a big push around this time but I'm not going to complain about that. Does anybody actually hate or dislike him? He seems like one of the few characters who's near universally liked.
>>154851856(reading bump)
Issue 35I was going to end it here but I'll also post the Nomad backups from Captain America #608-610 too.
That finishes off The Initiative and as said before Avengers Academy picks up right after this. But it's going to be a while before I get to it since that's sort of the end point of this whole thing. Bengal showed up in Slott's Spider-Boy series but a lot of the characters from this series are largely reduced to cameos and most haven't been seen in a long time.Anyway, time for the Nomad backups.
Captain America #608
Captain America #609
>>154853141Blitzschlag is great. The 'Evil Nazi Scientist of yesteryear takes a plea deal with the States' is an underutilized genre for Superheroes and him covering his own ass at every angle so he doesn't get Nuremberg'd again is hilarious.
>>154853441The end of Initiative is basically it for him which is a shame. But I can imagine writers not wanting to touch him and if they would they would just make him cartoonish.
Captain America #610
That's it for today. Next time is Young Allies #1-3 and the rest of the Nomad backups.
>>154852519Fuck yeah. Hes just peak human and he beat 2 asgardians 1v2. Who the fuck can do that in marvel??
>>154852819hurts
>>154854069At least she did go back to him.
>>154853028This page cracks me up for some reason. Probably the stupid goblin gliders.
