Once upon a time in Marvel Comics there were The Avengers, occasionally the West Coast Avengers and that was more or less it in terms of Avengers-branded superteams. But within the past decade it's become common for multiple Avengers associations to operate concurrently - often with different and occasionally opposing mission statements. These teams allowed fans a chance to see surprising character-combinations and interactions between heroes they might otherwise never have seen. With the Marvel Universe once again thrown into disarray by another Civil War event, it was inevitable that new teams would once again emerge.

Now, Marvel has announced that Fall 2016 will bring an all-new Avengers team with an offbeat, patriotic edge: The U.S.Avengers

Washington Post is reporting the series is coming from highly sought-after writer Al Ewing and artist Paco Medina; the story will involve mutant billionaire Roberto Da Costa (formerly "Sunspot" of The New Mutants), a fiercely-patriotic Brazilian immigrant to the U.S., purchasing the onetime supervillain outfit A.I.M. and rebuilding it into the security-focused "American Intelligence Mechanics" - complete with its own star-spangled Avengers team featuring an unusual assortment of old and new heroes. The series was announced via a press-release which, along with the bombastic cover art, teases a tone that takes a tongue-in-cheek (if not outright satirical) approach to the eyebrow-raising concept of superheroes as patriotic pep squad:

"The U.S.Avengers will dare any danger - no matter how unbelievably awesome that danger might be - to defend freedom, democracy, apple pie, bald eagles and the electric guitar!"

USAvengers Cover

The regular team is set to feature Da Costa's onetime New Mutant teammate Cannonball, alien-armored Norwegian teenager POD, a new female incarnation of The Iron Patriot and The Red Hulk, aka General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. Their inaugural adventure will pit The U.S.Avengers against time-traveling supervillain The Gold Skull, which leads to a team-up with Gold Skull's similarly time-displaced nemesis Danielle Cage - the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones from the possible-future timeline of Earth 15061. Whether or not Cage will stick around as a team regular remains to be seen.

That's a pretty heavy lineup of (newer) fan-favorite characters, particularly the centering of newly-minted cult icon "The Unbeatable" Squirrel Girl, whose popular current solo series has used her unusual status in the Marvel Universe (possessing the power to talk to squirrels, she was originally created as a joke character but is so beloved by fans and creators that she has earned a "mysterious" reputation of being effectively undefeatable) to refashion her as a kind of younger female equivalent to the self-aware Deadpool. But while fans of such characters might not be immediately expected to embrace a comic about over-the-top American patriotism, series editor Tom Breevport stresses that it's all in good fun:

“U.S.Avengers will be a bold, brawny book that will distill everything that you love about and everything that you fear about this great land of ours into twenty pages of high-octane patriotic action every issue.”

USAvengers Squirrel-Girl
USAvengers Roberto Da Costa
USAvengers Red Hulk
USAvengers POD
USAvengers Iron Patriot
USAvengers Cannonball

The U.S.Avengers is slated to hit shelves in Fall 2016. Stick with Screen Rant for more updates on this and other unfolding events.

Source: Washington Post