Captain Britain is an Avenger! Finally!

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. Age Of Heroes #1 this week had a short story starring Captain Britain and M.I.13 (a very much missed title by this Marvelite), with a small but fascinating battle of wills between Pete Wisdom and Captain America.

Of course, the Captain won, maybe Pete has softened over the years.  On the spur of the moment during a ceremony recognising relations between the new security administration in the States and the forces of the UK, Steve Rogers suddenly offered Brian Braddock membership of the Avengers. Pete immediately saw the Americans stealing away British talent, but surely, what a coup for Britain! Definitely a coup for Brian and let’s face it, one for the Avengers as well. After all, this is the guy who was guardian of the entire freaking omniverse for a while. Surely that is some clout that these new Avengers need on their side.

Meanwhile, the Avengers relaunch proceeds apace.  Avengers #1 showed us promise of a larger story that won’t simply be reserved to a few issues, even if it is a story we have seen before. (Your children have taken over the future? Been there, done that.  I mean my children are scheduled to rule the planet for millennia, and I haven’t even got any yet!) However, any story with both Kang and Immortus cannot be bad, and I don’t think that we have seen the latter since Avengers Forever.

In fact on that note, I think on Kang’s timeline, this has to be before the Destiny War, as he states that this is the first time his and the Avengers goals are aligned. Erm, about that…… Destiny War? The Terminatrix Agenda? Remember those?

Obviously not.

Secret Avengers appears to be a far more meatier title. Moon Knight and Nova, spycraft and a martian Serpent Crown? Oh, I want to see a lot more of this.

Meanwhile the new simplicity of the Fantastic Four is suddenly not so simple, and seems to promise yet another ill-advised effort by Reed to solve everything.  His new Future Foundation, composed mainly of children (genii all) strikes me as yet another tool for Reed to manipulate.  Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit, but Richards is a man that I now find hard to trust, as his intelligence seems to constantly distance himself from the rest of humanity, and he is hardly a man to react to democracy, even as he himself claims to believe in self determination. Watch this space, as I hope I am wrong, but the Civil War (and many other acts like once reducing his son to a vegetative state) has shattered any blind loyalty to him I had as a child.

(Must remember, they are not real. They are not real. They are not real!)

All in all, this new age of optimism has had a great start and is long overdue.  Comics can be fun again!

Now if only the X-Men manage to have a couple of happy issues.  Just one or two, that’s all I ask.