Ack! Marvel! I can’t keep up with all your Secret Wars news!
Earlier this week, G. Willow Wilson mysteriously tweeted that “Huge comics-related announcement incoming later this week. Stay tuned.” I immediately almost lost it because I assume every Marvel announcement has to do with the MCU. I jumped to the conclusion, “they cast Captain Marvel, this is it. This is it. I’m not ready. *tears hair out*”
I simmered down, realizing it’s comics-related and brainstormed. Why would Wilson, the writer of the new “Ms. Marvel” series, tweet something about comics–OMG LADY STUFF? What neat lady stuff would Marvel do now?
Backtracking a little bit, we learned that with the Secret Wars event, a new title called “Secret Wars 2099″ under a branding called “Warzones” (the two other brandings are “Battleworld” and “Last Days”) will debut in May, and it’s actually not too tied to the actual event. Seriously, I cannot keep up with whatever is going to be happening on Battleworld this summer. Anyway, in “Secret Wars 2099″ we will see a team led by a female Captain America. While this series takes place 84 years in the future, could it be related to whatever Wilson was mysteriously tweeting about?
Nope. Instead it’s something MUCH cooler. Today, Marvel announced an all-female Avengers team! It will also debut in May to go along with the Secret Wars within the “Warzones” branding (BUT HOW? SOMEONE SEND HELP!). Looking at the released artwork, the A-Force features known ladies like She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Electra, and more. You even find Dazzler and Nico Minoru are in the mix.
The story, written by Wilson and Marguerite K. Bennett features art by Jorge Molina (the artist behind the new “Thor”). For the haters out there saying, “it’s just a group of girls. So?” Women will recognize that getting a group together of that capacity requires much more than extra toilet paper. Relationships and talents must go much deeper. Wilson says they’ve “purposefully assembled a team composed of very different characters-from disparate parts of the Marvel U, with very different power sets, identities and ideologies.” She goes on to say that the women “embody the ideals of what we can each strive to be.” YES. Bring forth unto the world a book for girls to read! With role models to look up to!
Included in these role models is a new heroine named Singularity, who looks mysterious and ethereal. Wilson tweeted about this new character, “Singularity is an interesting character. She’s not a flesh and blood human being, but a cosmological event that gains self-consciousness. So she doesn’t have a natural gender. She isn’t ‘born.’ She doesn’t age. She learns about all these things from us–the human race. I didn’t want to create yet another amazon. If we were going to do all-women, we were going to ask the big questions.”
I still don’t even know what is happening during these Wars of Secret, but I’m glad to have a team like the A-Force introduced to help usher in a new era of Marvel comics.