Hickman & Epting's "New Avengers" Quietly Joins Marvel NOW Relaunch

[vitruvian]

I never understood how a team with Carol, Stephen and Ben could be considered "street level."

Heck, when one considers that Logan has fought the Hulk, Danny can fist people (insert joke here...damn, that IS a joke) way "above" his power level and that Pete beat Firelord...well, they are not really street anymore.

Pete's never been very street. #1 - nearly beats up the FF trying to join them. #2 - Vulture. #3 - Dr. Octopus in a national security-level nuclear plot. #4 - Sandman. #5 - Dr. Doom!. #6 - Lizard, building an army of reptiles in the Everglades. And so on... he's always interspersed fighting crooks and supercrooks in the streets of NYC with excursions to other regions, space, etc. to fight all sorts of foes.

[XPac]

Can somebody please define for me what exactly "street level" means? I don't think I have a good grasp on the term. Never really been my preferred type of comics, so I have very little experience with it.

It's a weird term because it sort of mixes 2 different concepts.

It can refer both to the situation a character typically works under, and power level.

Street level, as the name implies, often refers to dealing with street crime and more "real life" problems particularly in the streets of NYC. Daredevil is essentially the flag ship character for that,. Batman on the DC side of things.

But it at times is also a reference to power level. Characters that are either not meta-human or relatively low on that scale. Again we can point to characters like Batman and Daredevil.

Typically characters who deal with street level stuff are low on the power scale anyways since the threat level is low... you don't need Thor fighting muggers and drug deals. And when that's the case, there's no innate conflict in the dueling nature of the terms. HOWEVER, where things get sort of mixed up is when a low end meta-human ends up dealing with higher end threats (like Batman in the Justice League rather than in Gotham), or when a more powerful character decides to deal with low end street crime (Spider-Man quite frankly always falls under that IMO), then whether or not someone is street level sort of becomes foggy.

When Batman is fighting Darkseid, he's still street level in terms of power level but clearly not in terms of situation. Luke Cage and Spider-Man can and do fight street crime... but they're actually moderately powerful characters that obviously do Avenger level stuff all the time.

[IrishArtist81]

Anyone remember that timeline future tony stark showed to our tony stark in one of the new avengers issues? Right before "the ultron war" is supposed to start, it mentioned "the first xmen"...my money is on we see the ultron war as the summer 2013 event. If someone can find that timeline itll give us some ideas what we might see thereafter.

[cdgodin]

Right before Ultron War there was Steve's vision and Yesterday's X-Men.

[IrishArtist81]

Right before Ultron War there was Steve's vision and Yesterday's X-Men.

Anyone have any idea what "steves vision" could be? Maybe the term vision is loose, maybe it has to do with the actual vision. Either that or captain america has a nightmare in a miniseries leading to ultron war.

Anyways, seeing the "first xmen" finally show up with this new plan reassures me that marvel knows what its doing and had this planned for a bit now...but the fact the first xmen will be around at the same time as present xmen seems odd, especially if theyre gonna be around awhile...2 cyclops, beasts, angels, and icemans? For longer than a year? Not sure what to think of it if its longer than a miniseries.

[Van Custo]

Ultron War has real potential, it could be an epic along the lines of AoA, but I'm not the optimist I used to be when it comes to Marvel events.

[Will.S]

Anyone have any idea what "steves vision" could be? Maybe the term vision is loose, maybe it has to do with the actual vision. Either that or captain america has a nightmare in a miniseries leading to ultron war.

Anyways, seeing the "first xmen" finally show up with this new plan reassures me that marvel knows what its doing and had this planned for a bit now...but the fact the first xmen will be around at the same time as present xmen seems odd, especially if theyre gonna be around awhile...2 cyclops, beasts, angels, and icemans? For longer than a year? Not sure what to think of it if its longer than a miniseries.

For a while it seemed like the vision was Fear Itself with Bucky and Thor knocked out and beat up and a silhouette of someone holding a power weapon. The tri-pods are basically the only thing that don't jive but perhaps we'll never really know what the dream will be about.

[IrishArtist81]

For a while it seemed like the vision was Fear Itself with Bucky and Thor knocked out and beat up and a silhouette of someone holding a power weapon. The tri-pods are basically the only thing that don't jive but perhaps we'll never really know what the dream will be about.

Steve sees rocket racoon then breaks the 4th wall and is assaulted by disney characters, who've all been enslaved by ultron to kill the marvel universe. Only howard the duck and spiderham save the day, by riding in on lockheed and feeding mickey mouse to marvel zombie galactus.

Then steve wakes up in a panicky sweat and says "no more bar hopping with stark and wolverine again, jesus!"

[infernohara]

Can somebody please define for me what exactly "street level" means? I don't think I have a good grasp on the term. Never really been my preferred type of comics, so I have very little experience with it.

I find it to be just a subliminal dig on the Luke Cage character. Because Luke Cage was a "street" character and now leads a factor of the Avengers that team is a "street" team even though they have a decent amount of powerhouses on said team. Its kinda disrespectful in a way, but it is what it is.

[Will.S]

Steve sees rocket racoon then breaks the 4th wall and is assaulted by disney characters, who've all been enslaved by ultron to kill the marvel universe. Only howard the duck and spiderham save the day, by riding in on lockheed and feeding mickey mouse to marvel zombie galactus.

Then steve wakes up in a panicky sweat and says "no more bar hopping with stark and wolverine again, jesus!"

I suppose that also works.

[classicgmer]

On the whole what is "street level" definition thing when people use terms like that I don't think it's meant to pigeonhole a character into one classifcation of heroics BUT merely pointing out what they excel in...Like for me Spider-man is above all else the "street level hero" in the Marvel U....Now thats not to say he doesn't deal with guys like Firelord, Captain Universe, Ultron, Dormammu & a whole host of other villains/threats BUT for every adventure he's had with the guys I just mentioned he's had hundreds more dealings with Rhino,Sandman, Electro, Vulture, Hydroman, etc & your everyday bankrobbers or purse snatchers in NY.


Spidey is most certainly a well rounded hero BUT he's not gonna be the first guy you come to see for a mystical threat cause that would be Dr Strange....If you need to do a little reality hopping you'll most likely go with the Reed & the FF...Kung Fu..you go to Iron Fist or maybe Shang Chi & so forth & so on.

[therealmccoy]

I've got a copy of that timeline from Avengers 5. If you read it carefully you really see how far in advanced Marvel plans things. Fear itself, Academy Traitor, who is worthy. According to timeline Schism ends with something called Steve's Vision. There is something called Yesterday's X-Men which I think hints towards the new title from Bendis. And following that Ultron War.

[therealmccoy]

Ooops noticed someone already posted what I said before. Other things on map were Fear Without Man, Galactus Seed, What's in the Rings? All Hope LIes in Doom. I don't really read outside of Avengers or X-men so guessing this is in referent to other titles.

[therealmccoy]

Also noticed after Ultron War there is "Born to Burns" and then "Kang Forces"

[therealmccoy]