Academy’s greatest strength is the new characters. The issue is narrated by Veil – the teenage, angst ridden girl who can also transform her body into a gaseous state. She has a distinct teenage voice. You can tell her apart from the rest of the cast without looking past her speech balloons. She exists. Whether you want to hear about Twilight and text messaging in your Avengers or not – her voice is one of the clearest parts of the book.

Although Veil is the star here, the other new characters: Mettle, Striker, Reptil (I know he’s been around before, but Gage has a new direction for him now), Hazard, and Finesse all stand-out independently as well. Mettle is the Ben Grimm type. Striker wants to be famous. Reptil wants to lead the team. Hazard is dangerous and distant. Finesses is confident.

Gage has a vision of who all these characters are and he is able to convey that onto the page. Moreover, he has established these characters without telling their origins or linking them to other parts of the Marvel Universe. That’s not the easiest approach that could have been taken here, but it leaves the story with places to go later.

The instructors have their character moments as well, but their moments are where we learn about the new students through the instructor’s point-of-view. For instance, we see Wasp (Hank Pym) struggle to give Veil some bad news – this is a Veil moment, but framed around Wasp’s insecurities. Gage knows that in order for the new characters to flourish, the instructors need to stay off the main stage.

The exception is Speedball (formerly Penance), whom we learn may be in a condition closer to the students than the staff through his interactions with the students.

Gage is best known to Avengers’ fans as the sometimes writing partner of Dan Slott on the Mighty Avengers and Avengers: The Initiative, and for his solo run on the latter though the last year-and-half of Marvel’s Dark Reign saga. The blessing or the curse here for Gage is he is still playing with a lot of Slott’s toys, as he was with his solo run on the Initiative. Mighty Avengers fans will notice that Gage has borrowed a lot of elements left over from that series, which is great if you’re a fan of that series and want to see that story continue. However, Gage also has new toys to play with now, and in order to develop them, the Wasp and Quicksilver are going to have to remain in the background. If you’re looking for big developments with these characters, the Academy may frustrate you.

With his history in Avengers: The Initiative and the training of teen heroes there, Gage also faces the challenge of setting the Academy apart from the Initiative and the other teen heroes books, like Young Avengers and the Runaways that came before it. Gage tries to do this with a big reveal in the closing pages of the story – I would say to stop here if you don’t want to read any spoilers, but I’m not sure it’s shocking enough to warrant that. The Academy isn’t envisioned as a place to train the “Avengers of tomorrow,” as Reptil says in the issue, but to prevent these six troubled students from becoming the “Masters of Evil of tomorrow.” The big reveal in Runaways is that the young heroes’ parents are villains. In Thunderbolts it is that the heroes are villains. In Young Avengers the shocker at the end of issue one is that the main protagonist, Iron Lad, is the teenage super villain Kang. This is not new territory and it does little to separate the Academy from the pack.

Artist Mike McKone (pencils and inks) excels in the design of the Academy students.
For the most part, they are unique, fun, bold and really pop-off the page. Mettle’s Red Skull meets Colossus look is a stand-out along with Veil’s ribbon costume that comes apart when she turns into her gaseous form.

The instructors and the team’s headquarters tend to fall a little flatter than the new heroes. That’s okay though. The Wasp and the mansion are no longer the stars they were in Mighty Avengers and they shouldn’t steal any attention away from the kids.

Where McKone needs improvement is in the close quarters fight scenes. In the Academy’s “Danger Room” fights between Speedball and Striker and Speedball and Hazmat, it’s hard to track the action from panel to panel without getting lost on who threw the last punch or where of all of Speedball’s energy orbs are heading.

Throughout the issue, McKone uses a cool technique of juxtaposing the new team against images of iconic Avengers that are placed as art on the walls of the Academy headquarters, but the use of this technique on the cover is distracting. The cover has Thor, Cap, and Iron Man in their early Avengers costumes placed behind an image of the new students, but the Big Three are not even in the issue. This is aggravated by the awkward forcing of the Heroic Age banner, Academy logo, and the giant-size “#1” onto the cover. They might as well have thrown in a nice “collector’s item” logo at the bottom too.

Like all of the Heroic Age Avengers relaunches, Avengers Academy #1 comes with a few pages of back-up material, which can either be viewed as a gift for the fans or Marvel’s vain attempt to justify the extra dollar on the price tag. Here, there is no disputing that we get the latter. There are pin-ups of each of the new characters, which have been on the internet for months as teasers, and an interview with Gage that was previously published on Marvel.com. How about some character sketches, a New Warriors reprint... anything else, please.

As for the Academy’s “Permanent Record,” call it ½ stars. Yes, it’s true this is the Wasp’s “School for Gifted Youngsters” (remind you of anyone?). However, the new characters have potential and it’s great to see the Mighty Avengers/Initiative casts in a new home. Writer Christos Gage has had some breakout issues on Avengers: The Initiative, like his first solo issue, #13, where he brought in his own cadets, and the infamous Johnny Guitar issue. Avengers Academy surely has a place amongst these greats.