Warning! Spoilers for Heroes Reborn #1-2 ahead!
Marvel’s new world of superheroes and civilians depicted in Heroes Reborn has made huge changes to the familiar Avengers pantheon, leaving readers and characters alike scrambling to figure out exactly what is real and what is fake. But while it initially appears that Blade is the only one who remembers how the world is supposed to be, the series has hinted that others know that something is not right.
Seemingly using former SHIELD agent Phil Coulson as his personal puppet, Marvel’s own Satan stand-in, Mephisto, appears to have created a new world where the Avengers never formed. With Coulson as president of the United States, a new set of heroes has stepped into the limelight. Lead by the All-American, hyper-patriotic Hyperion, the Squadron Supreme are now the people standing in the way of the villains looking to attack Earth. The Squadron Supreme’s jingoistic brand of crime-fighting may jive well with the creepy, off-kilter feeling of the new Avengers universe while unsettling readers, but their presence, along with the myriad of changes, have not exactly gone unnoticed.
In Heroes Reborn #1, by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, and Matthew Wilson, Blade stumbles aimlessly through the changed world, searching for someone who remembers the world that was. The comic hints that the now-President of the United States, Phil Coulson, knows more than he’s letting on. It’s Blade’s confrontation with Squadron member Nighthawk that truly confirms that something has changed, however, when the new hero recognizes Blade and dodges Blade’s accusation that that world is “a big damn lie.” Nighthawk and Blade may not be the only ones recognizing that something is wrong, and the strange, false world may be already starting to crumble.
In Heroes Reborn #2, the superhero Hyperion leaves the safety of the high school history class he teaches and spends his day fighting baddies across a squeaky-clean American landscape. Flying across the nation, he waxes poetic about his previous successful missions taking down the “commie Winter Soldier” and the “freakshow Mutant Force,” but it’s his current opponents who are raising red flags for readers and disturbing the new hero Hyperion. As he fights the reality-bending Mr. Beyonder, tying the creature's tongue into knots, he is unsettled by the alien’s declaration that the “world is built of lies!” But it's his interactions with a confused and upset Hulk, who is desperately trying to express that he knows the world is “wrong,” that have readers sitting up and paying attention. As Hyperion and Hulk battle, Hulk asks, “Hulk’s friends missing! Where Earth’s mightiest heroes?!”
Readers can take comfort that Blade has found a second person to join his team—pulling Captain America from the ice to convince him that something is very wrong with the world, and, hopefully, starting the process of fixing it. Time will tell if Heroes Reborn introduces other Avengers heroes who remember the Marvel Universe as it is supposed to be.