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It had been a story for a while that in May Marvel would be announcing new teams
and new series that would spin out of Legacy and Free Comic Book Day. This week
Marvel made it official and labeled the new initiative Fresh Start. As has been
the case will all of Marvel’s publishing initiatives we saw promo art from Jim
Cheung, who had been teasing pieces of it on his Instagram account. The promo
art had Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and Spider-Man but also Gambit, She-Hulk
and Venom. The Thor seen was the original but carrying a new gold hammer and
Iron Man was wearing a more traditional armor. The art didn’t have every
character involved in the initiative because Marvel didn’t want to overwork
Cheung. As far as creative teams we already knew that Dan Slott was writing Iron
Man and that Mark Waid and Chris Samnee were leaving Captain America. There are
also strong hints that the Fantastic Four are returning in June. One of the new
teams on a title is Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman on Venom, which will have Eddie
Brock and his alien symbiote facing a threat a 1,000 years in the making. The
second has Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness taking over Avengers. The book will
ship 18 times a year and involve two teams; the present day team of Captain
America, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Ghost Rider (Robbie
Reyes), Hulk (Jennifer Walters), and Doctor Strange and the Avengers team seen
in Marvel Legacy of Odin, Ghost Rider, Agamotto, Black Panther, Phoenix and
Starbrand. Both teams will be facing off against the Dark Celestials. Doctor
Strange is only there for the first arc and new team members will be added for
each new story arc. When the story about the new initiative broke there was some
confusion about whether the Legacy numbering would remain but Senior VP and
Executive Editor Tom Brevoort said the new #1’s will also have the Legacy
numbers since this was what Legacy was building up to. |
