Creative changes? Relaunch? What's next for the the Avengers?

[Linnus]

How about Brian wood? He has no ongoings and marvel just acquired him.

[Desaad]

How about Brian wood? He has no ongoings and marvel just acquired him.

"acquired"? Did he go Marvel exclusive? Last I saw he was doing freelance, no?

[Telos]

"acquired"? Did he go Marvel exclusive? Last I saw he was doing freelance, no?

He recently signed an exclusive contract with Marvel.

[Tiamatican]

Loeb is actually probably a better bet for "Avengers" than Jeff Parker, and I think he'd probably make it big bombastic fun, so that would be fine I'm sure.

I don't think Marvel has a lot of confidence in DnA to hold a franchise like the Avengers up. They have clearly been relegated to fringe/support books like the Cosmic stuff, New Mutants, etc.

Writers I could see being involved would be Spencer, Parker, Slott, Loeb, Gage, Bunn, Gillen.

Brubaker already tried to do an Avengers book, and it was too much work for him. He went back to soloish books, and I think he's probably doing what he wants for now.

Fraction, Remender, Aaron and Hickman are all pretty full up on work right now. Fraction might have room for one more book, even with Defenders, though.

Spencer is on an exclusive with Marvel and is only handling one book regularly at the moment. Parker is doing two books, and it's clear that Marvel really has a lot of love/respect for him from Agents of Atlas and from the solid, if not remarkable, success of his Hulk and Thunderbolts. Slott is currently only writing one book, but one that is really two. Still, I think he could squeeze in another, and he does love the Avengers. Loeb is huge, but not very good at actually building a franchise since he doesn't do much long term storytelling anymore. Still, just for the sheer name recognition of saying "Loeb and McGuiness on the Avengers!" I think it's likely that they'll get the main book. Gage is a workhorse for the company with only two books right now for Marvel (three in total, though), Bunn is deeply steeped in their current Avengers stuff and all his Marvel work will be done by the time this gets rolling leaving him wide open, and Gillen has a lot of critical heat behind him and is only working on two books at the momo.

I love Christos Gage, but there's no way he'd be given a flagship title right now. Another five to ten years, maybe, but right now, he just doesn't have the name recognition. Nothing he's done has sold well enough for Marvel to trust him on the main Avengers title. It's a similar situation with Bunn - he just doesn't have the output yet. He's very much a newcomer to Marvel. It's even worse for Spencer, whose most high-profile work was 4 fill-in issues on Secret Avengers during Fear Itself. Though they were really good issues, aside from the Black Widow one. Iron Man 2.0 has been a low-seller, his Cloak & Dagger mini did even worse. He's doing Ultimate X-Men now, that might raise his profile. He deserves it, because he is a really good writer.

So they can all be ruled out.

They're not likely to take Aaron off WatXM, or Gillen off Uncanny, so soon after they took over the books. So they're probably out of the running.

Remender has been doing a good job with Uncanny X-Force, and his Venom has been generally well-received. But he may be another one who's not big enough yet.

So we've got Loeb, Fraction, Parker, Slott, Brubaker, and Hickman. Hickman tends to do a lot of complicated stuff, and Marvel likely wants something a bit simpler for the Avengers. So I don't see them choosing him. Parker strikes me as an excellent mid-level writer. He's very good, and very reliable. He does some great stuff. But I'm not sure if Marvel sees him as headliner material. For now, I don't see them putting him on one of their top titles.

Slott, Brubaker and DnA have all proven themselves worthy. I can't think of any reason Marvel wouldn't choose any of them. Brubaker did well on Secret Avengers, and has spent years writing a pretty definitive Captain America run. And Slott has likewise done a pretty epic Amazing Spider-Man run, and has done plenty of other major comics as well. The Initiative and Mighty Avengers both come to mind. And DnA had a brilliant run in the cosmic corner writing high-stakes stories with deep characterization.

But I don't honestly see any of them getting it. There's no reason they couldn't. I just think Marvel will go with someone else. Though all three of them are dark horse candidates.

So unfortunately, that leaves it a toss-up between Loeb and Fraction. Fraction's done a great job on Iron Man, but his Uncanny X-Men run wasn't great, and Fear Itself ultimately felt hollow. And Jeph Loeb wrote Ultimatum. And had Red Hulk punch the Watcher. And revealed that Wolverine and Sabretooth are evolved from dogs (which I've retconned in my head as being faked by Romulus).

So I have to really, really hope they give it to Fraction. I don't like saying something mean about a writer without also adding something nice, but I've been looking through Loeb's writing credits, and I can barely even remember most of what he's done. And I've read some of his Marvel stuff. Back in the '90s, he wrote X-Force for a bit, he wrote Cable, he wrote the first 9 issues of X-Man. And I can barely remember anything from any of it. Which isn't a good sign.

[Awesome!]

He recently signed an exclusive contract with Marvel.

He's doing a Conan book for Dark Horse starting in Feb. I assume that's not going to be affected?

[Linnus]

Assume not exclusive tends to apply to direct competition which Conan is not wrong genre

[Desaad]

He recently signed an exclusive contract with Marvel.

Could I get a link? I haven't seen that, last I saw he was freelance, after having ended a 5 year DC exclusive contract.

[Sighphi]

They should let Sighphi write the Avengers.
His idea for the Euro Avengers was interesting.

[Desaad]

RE: The Idea that you have to be HUGE to take over all the Avengers books.

Well, I think they are going to try to get a big name in for the main Avengers book, which is why I threw in Loeb as my guess. With him writing all the preface stuff, X Sanction, etc I anticipate him taking over the main Avengers book, writing the flagship.

But New Avengers and Avengers Assemble aren't necessarily flagships, and there are only so many 'huge' writers you can have on a franchise. Generally you have just the one, and then secondary players. I think all the guys I mentioned - Parker, Gage, Gillen, etc are likely to get those books. They have buzz, their work is well liked, they're reliable. Gage got Astonishing X Men and Gillen got UNCANNY! Relaunched, no less!

Slott, Brubaker and DnA have all proven themselves worthy. I can't think of any reason Marvel wouldn't choose any of them. Brubaker did well on Secret Avengers, and has spent years writing a pretty definitive Captain America run. And Slott has likewise done a pretty epic Amazing Spider-Man run, and has done plenty of other major comics as well. The Initiative and Mighty Avengers both come to mind. And DnA had a brilliant run in the cosmic corner writing high-stakes stories with deep characterization.

No way.

Brubaker tried Secret Avengers and had to leave because he felt he wasn't suited to it.

DnA's cosmic work got NO love from Marvel, and they've been relegated to bit players at BEST. Villains for Hire? Various Annihilation minis that sell nothing? New Mutants? In what way has Marvel demonstrated more confidence in them, or are they bigger names, than the guys they gave "Hulk" (Parker), "Uncanny X Men" (Gillen) and Astonishing X Men (Gage)?

Even Bunn, who is a 'buzz worthy' writer at best, has a far more central role at the company right now than does DnA.

[Linnus]

I would say Parker on New Avengers, he writes a Cage well.

Not sure who I would put on Avengers. Not Fraction though. Maybe Yost the show is great not sure if he is a big enough name though.

[Frank]

They should relaunch it with Three Big Books on equal footing like when they restarted the X-line in the early 90s with X-Men #1, X-Force, Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor.

Since Silvestri is already drawing at Marvel, I would have these guys relaunch it:

Marc Silvestri
Walt Simonson
John Cassaday

With Waid, Millar and Bryan Augustyn writing.

[DjMichael691]

For me I would LOVE:
Joss Whedon - Olivier Copial with Clay Mann as full in artist
Chris Yost and Craig Kyle - Mike Choi with Mark Brooks as full in artist
Joe Kelly - Adam Kubert with Skottie Young as full in artist

also Jonathan Hickman - Jim Cheung (SP?) with Stefano Caselli as full in artist would be a good fit.

[Gracie Branch]

Really wish Waid would get the job

[Linnus]

Really wish Waid would get the job

Has he written any team books? Because I have more then my fill of people who are better fits for solos writing team books.

[Frank]

There's nothing Waid can't do. He wrote Fantastic Four. He wrote Flash that had gazillion speedsters for supporing cast. He wrote Kingdom Come and he wrote JLA.