Avengers: The Initiative Primer

If the Civil War event was steeped in metaphor about the response to 9/11, then Avengers: The Initiative was a commentary on further militarization of the United States. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a clumsy one as Marvel walked a tight rope act. If you’re a younger person who did not grow up during that period, America went into a vengeful fervor after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This led to massive support for US led invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq (even though Iraq had nothing to do with it). Not supporting the response or being critical of the mission was viewed as unpatriotic. When it came to media, people of influence were cancelled because of the criticisms toward the war, the most notable being the Dixie Chicks and documentarian Michael Moore. This had a chilling effect on critical voices in media which was already being drowned out by patriotic propaganda. Marvel Comics was no stranger to this at the time, as many stories that were published during this period made some commentary on those events and the aftermath. There wasn’t a lot out there that was overly critical until Civil War.

This was because, as the war pressed onward, the passage of new anti-terrorism laws meant a loss of freedoms that were taken for granted. However, most gripes were usually about the personal annoyance of having to take your shoes off at the airport. This is because a lot of media was the works of predominantly white creators, the least impacted by these new laws.

I suppose Avengers: The Initiative was supposed to be a commentary on the military recruitment aspect of the post-9/11 world. With superhero trainees standing in for the influx of new recruits into the military during this period. However, I feel that this metaphor falls kind of flat as it got lost in the trappings of a superhero comic book. It’s still there, but it was heavily muted as I’m sure that Marvel navigated the tightrope of valid criticism and attitudes of the day. Be too critical, and that could negatively impact sales of a new series. Marvel is, first and foremost, a business that strives to make money. So while they have had real world commentary, it usually stops short of its impact on the bottom line.

The story to this series (by Dan Slott for the first 20 odd issues and Christos N. Gage for the remainder) follows the recruits of the 50-State Initiative. Coming out of Civil War, the Initiative was intended to be a training ground for novice superheroes enacted under the Super Human Registration Act (SHRA). They would then be trained and placed on government sponsored superhero teams that would be active in all 50 states. I think this would have been an interesting story to follow in the sense that it looked at new and pre-existing characters that wouldn’t normally have the spotlight. The idea of having a book that followed the adventures of 50 different superhero teams would have been interesting as an ongoing series, with each story arc following a specific team or character in the wide myriad of characters.

Unfortunately, this idea — like many of the time — was never really given a chance to breath and find its own footing. Instead, it was basically a vehicle for the non-stop series of events that came out of this era: The Initiative, World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Siege. While these events were fantastic reads on their own, the sum of their parts did not get the care or attention I feel they deserved. Any character growth or building on the premise for the book was sidelined whenever one of these big events happened. Which I feel is a shame.

Dark Reign felt like it got to the crux of its commentary. With Norman Osborn becoming America’s top cop and using it to further empower and enrich himself and his allies. This stood as an apt, yet heavy handed, metaphor for the Bush administration which seemed very cozy with weapons manufacturers and oil interests via-a-vie the conflicts in the Middle East. This critical metaphor does come a bit late, since Dark Reign and Siege came about by the time that Bush’s second term was winding down and Barack Obama was voted in. At the time, the public perception of Obama was that he was enshrining a period of hope and prosperity after 8 years of Bush and war. It didn’t quite turn out that way, and some argue that Obama was as bad, if not worse than Bush, he just had a velvet tongue that distracted you from all the bad shit he was up to.

That said, with the Obama presidency, Marvel kind of bounced into a rather rosy new relaunch to start the 2010s off, The Heroic Age. Which saw a lot of the old status quos coming back and the doom and gloom of the last half decade shuttered away.

Still, despite its short comings, Avengers: The Initiative is an interesting read (particularly Slott’s run on the book) and the artwork (by the likes of Stefan Caselli, Humberto Ramos, and Rafa Sandoval, among others) is all fantastic.

Still, as interesting as this concept may have been, the book was scuttled with the conclusion of Siege. Marvel did put out spiritual successors to the Initiative in the Avengers Academy (which gave Avengers trainees the Xavier’s School treatment) and Avengers Arena (which was heavily inspired by the Japanese film Battle Royale), nothing has come out that has fully stuck around. They tried to bring back the whole Initiative thing in the Fear Itself storyline, but it fizzled out after a single mini-series, Youth in Revolt.

As I write this (July, 2024) the only similar book out is Strange Academy (Doctor Strange meets Harry Potter), and I doubt that this will be a long lasting series as Marvel starts to favor shorter and shorter runs. A new book gets a standard 5 issues and is done and very few being allowed to break past that unless it’s one of the majors. I would really like to see Marvel do an ongoing series that takes the 50-State premise and really run for it without being encumbered by various events, but I don’t think that’s going to be in the cards given the current environment. Still, these things tend to change and I bet that when people start getting nostalgic for the mid-to-late 2000s we’ll see some of these concepts pop back up again.