This is a big week for the house of ideas with Marvel kicking out the first issue in their biggest event so far this year: “Age of Heroes.” A series that sets out to wipe the darkened slate from the last several years of violent, harder edged crossovers and shed a little light back in their universe. Bringing together the creative writing team of Kurt Busiek (awesome), Rick Remender (dunno), Paul Cornell (ditto), and Dan Slott (LOVE him) as well as several top notch artists, I’d be lying if I said I had no interest in the book. I know that Marvel has been hit and miss for a while now, but I still have fond memories of those incredibly fun giant-sized issues (no Man-Thing jokes, please) rolled up in my back pocket as a kid and this whole new take appears to be a return to comics that aren’t taking themselves so seriously. Always welcome in my opinion.
So is this Marvel’s answer to DC’s lightening up of its titles with “Brightest Day” after their remarkably bleak, Blackest Night series? Personally, I feel like the softening up might have something to do with the company’s recent acquisition by Disney – In any case it’s nice to see a return made by both companies to the type of stories that made comics so great to read back before the industry went all grim ‘n gritty in the mid-eighties. In the words of Dan Slot: “Fun is not a dirty word anymore.” Sounds great to me. Check out the other releases here.
