Broken Frontier

If the Avengers are "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," the students of Avengers Academy are "Earth's Mightiest Troubled Youths." Norman Osborn's pet projects from his dark reign are now in the care of the Avengers, hoping to turn them into the great heroes they could be, instead of the great villains they would have been. These six teenagers all have teenage problems, and this Point One story throws a mutual one into the mix. If Mark Zuckerberg had superpowers, would he be a boon to humanity, or one of its greatest threats?

When a fight with Ruby Thursday has to be taken care of by Giant-Man, the students at Avengers Academy find themselves wondering about the others that Norman Osborn tried to mold. Finesse, using her photographic memory, remembered the name of another potential despot. Jeremy Briggs has grown into a billionaire tycoon akin to Facebook's founder, alongside having the ability to transmute anything. When they decide to see how one of their own succeeded in having a normal life, they find out that he may be the one that actually turned down the path of evil.

Marvel's Point One initiative has been criticized for not being used to its full advantage. Some stories are more like side-tracks in what was an otherwise ongoing storyline. Other stories are true beginnings of upcoming events. Few have actually been a place to start reading a book and gain a good grasp of the characters. Avengers Academy is one of those books that you could justifiably argue didn't need a Point One, as it's barely a year old. Is it really that hard to catch up on a few storylines? The first page of this book even does as much as the book itself sets you up on. The plot point of Jeremy Briggs, the boy billionaire who would be The Alchemist, will likely be followed up on in future stories. In that respect, the issue does its job of setting up the future.

The parts of the book that catch up new readers to what's going on are handled poorly, though. Instead of allowing character traits to play out, characters instead verbally call out the facets of one another. In comparison to this surprisingly weak writing from Christos Gage, Sean Chen stands out at times on art. Chen's art works best when up close, expertly working on facial features and emotions. From a distance, the blocking and the action is fine, but all the little details start to fall apart when you zoom in closer.

The book makes a point of keeping the faculty out of the story, minus two frames and two lines from Giant-Man. The conceit being that, as the Point One issues are to introduce new readers to the title, Gage chose to focus on the characters that are new and exclusive to this title. While focusing on all twelve characters detailed on page one would be slight overkill for a done-in-one story, skewing it exclusively to the students doesn't give the book its correct feel. In the past, Avengers Academy has been as much about the students as it is about the teachers and their issues. Previous arcs have focused on Tigra's dealing with her assault at the hands of The Hood, Hank Pym's transition from The Wasp back to Giant-Man, and Speedball's issues with his turn as Penance.

Avengers Academy's Point One issue is effective at setting up future threads, but awkwardly introduces half the cast of the book to new audiences. In short, it’s a fraction of what the book is known to be.