Intended to bridge the era of Dark Reign to a new, more brightly-colored phase of Marvel history, this one-shot introduces the five new Heroic Age titles in five short stories. These are the new books, not the new #1 issues of existing books.
First, it’s the best of the lot: Avengers Academy, by Christos Gage and Mike McKone. First Reptil, who was used by Osborn to track Stegron and then held for further experiments, is nearly murdered by a HAMMER agent (right after Osborn’s fall–the agent is trying to hide the evidence of his participation in the experiments). He’s rescued by Hank Pym, Tigra, and Justice, who recruit him to be the first student of Avengers Academy.
Next, Jeff Parker, Gabe Hardman, and Giancarlo Caracauzzo introduce the latest Agents of Atlas chapter. They fight a Kree Sentry robot in Hawaii.
Black Widow is next, followed by Hawkeye and Mockingbird, all in brief action sequences. We close out with a brief story introducing Luke Cage as the leader of a newly consistituted Thunderbolts team.
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Synopsis for “Coppelia”
- Synopsis not yet written
Appearing in “Big Trouble in Little Chinatown”
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Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- unnamed criminals
Other Characters:
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Vehicles:
- Mockingbird’s Motorcycle (Destruction)
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Synopsis for “Big Trouble in Little Chinatown”
- Synopsis not yet written
Appearing in “Top Dog”
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Griffin (John Horton)
- Ox (Ronald Bloch)
- Blood Brother
- Bushwhacker (Carl Burbank)
- Corruptor (Jackson Day)
- Norman Osborn
- Grizzly (Maxwell Markham)
Other Characters:
- Nerve Toxin Jellyfish
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Synopsis for “Top Dog”
The Raft prison has been completely repurposed to house the increase flow of supervillains. Thanks to MACH-V and Fixer, a dampening field is set up against any superpowers; the guards has obscuring armor and shock tech that works only for them; and genetically engineered jellyfish with a deadly nerve toxin, placed half-a-mile around the island. All this is noted Ox, who tells this to his fellow villains.
The guards then frog-march Osborn passed the various villains, to further dissociate all fear and respect the other villains have for him. The villains then hope aloud for a way out. Another guard marches up to them, stating that they either serve their time or join the Thunderbolts, to knock time off their sentence. The villains find the whole idea a joke, for the last group has been full of nothing but freaks, such as Nuke or the Ghost. The villain try ganging up on the guard, only to find out that he’s Luke Cage. He defeats them and intimidates them into submission. He then announces to the courtyard that the government was initially planning on canceling the Thunderbolts program. At first, he was willing to agree with them. But then someone told him that if any one of them is willing to redeem themselves can make a difference. They are picking recruits out next month and if any villain wants to keep ending up in prison, don’t show up.
Cage then meets up with Captain Steve Rogers up in Thunderbolts Tower, who comments on how he went undercover as a guard. Cage admits that he just wanted to get a feel of the place and make the villains think twice about messing with the guards, which was a little bit immature. Rogers corrects; it is exactly the kind of thing he would do. He expresses hope for Cage taking leadership of the Thunderbolts.