The Secret Is Out – Secret Avengers Is A Hit!

Over the last couple weeks I have been having conversations, regarding what happened to and what is happening with Marvel Cosmic, with Doug Smith of the Nova Prime Page and Bill Menesse, the CBN Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy reviewer quoted by Marvel in their press releases, solicits and catalogs.

This is the first in a series of opinionated articles, related to those discussions, that will focus on our various points relevant to Marvel Cosmic.

Our friends over at Newsarama posted the top ten sales for August with Secret Avengers #4 coming in at #5! That’s right, the Captain America led group of B-listers placed within the top ten once again. So far, the first issue debuted at #4, the second at #8, with the third at #10 (source: http://www.comichron.com). That’s a lot of readers following Steve Rogers, Beast, Black Widow, Valkyrie, Ant-Man, War Machine, Sharon Carter – and Richard Rider, Nova!

When Secret Avengers was first announced and Nova shown to assemble, Cosmic fans were split into basically two camps. On one hand, you had the readers that were ecstatic that guys like Nova were going to be exposed to a larger viewing audience through the likes of Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato! On the other hand, fans that had grown accustomed to their cosmic heroes…not getting treated as well(?)…in earth bound books, were a bit cautious to say the least (kids might read this, guys!).

Without getting into specifics, the cosmic crew is all too familiar with the head honchos at Marvel being pretty vocal about the “cosmic“ genre. You can decide for yourself if its good or bad. Regardless, everyone was excited.

Oh, to be honest I belonged to the latter group – hey, I am a Quasar fan after all. Can you blame me?!

It became known that Mr. Captain America himself, Ed Brubaker, was actually a fan of the Human Rocket. In an interview with Newsarama, Ed had this to say:

“Oh yeah, I was on Nova from, like, Issue #1. That was really book as a kid, I think. When I first discovered that book when I was a kid, I was so excited. Even in the early ’70s, it was rare that you could get in at the beginning of a series.

And you know, he’s not in the book as much as I would have liked him to be because he’s involved in so many other things. He’s in his own series and other comics.

So he’s got a really significant role in the first arc, but after that, it’s going to depend on what they let me do.”

That was excellent news for Nova fans! I seem to remember Doug being particularly excited about Secret Avengers in our episodes of the United Front – Going Knowhere Podcast.

Our boy was finally going to get a quality showing in a big time Marvel mainstream title – and an Avengers one to boot! Thousands and thousands of Marvel zombies would be first exposed to the likes of Rich and the Worldmind, not to mention the power that is the Nova Force!

Nova had just been placed on hiatus when the Secret Avengers announcement came – or close to it. This article isn’t going into specifics with the Nova monthly (that is for another article), but from our perspective Marvel knew what they had with Richard Rider and were trying their best to continue to “push” (promote) the hero of Annihilation. After all, Nova has been announced to be a member of the Super Hero Squad with season two, talk of a Nova movie, Nova being a part of the All Ages Marvel Adventures Super Heroes and more! Good times, ahead!

I think you can see where this is going.

I’m not going to rip apart the first arc of Secret Avengers (I’ll save it for the forums), though I am literally biting my lip, or fingers I suppose, to stop myself from doing so — because after reading Secret Avengers #4 I (we? everyone?) was just so darn disappointed.

Does Steve Rogers need another title to boost his credibility as being “the man” at Marvel? And at the expense (at least in my opinion) of a lesser selling, not as popular, recently canceled character who, right now, could use one hell of a push!

Cap is already in an abundance of titles, took Norman out in Siege (where was Pete?!), is head of the entire world, starring in two blockbuster movies, has been on CNN — on and on.

Marvel, you have a great opportunity with Secret Avengers to really promote and introduce a group of lesser known characters to a HUGE audience. SA tie-in, Vengeance of Moon Knight #10, sold out (Where the d’ast was Nova’s?)!

Let’s give these characters a little time of their own to shine. Let’s continue to build up the Marvel Universe. Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Deadpool, The Incredible Hulk, Iron-Man and why not: Ant-Man! Moon Knight! Nova! Heck, while we are at it – Quasar!

That’s all I’m saying.