In August, the end begins for Avengers Academy, as the students we’ve known - and loved - are about to take their “Final Exam,” during a four part arc by writer Christos Gage and artists Tom Grummett and Andrea Di Vito. Starting in issue #34, shipping twice a month through September, the arc will take the core roster of students, lock them in a building with arch... Enemy? Friend? Benefactor? Well, arch something or other The Alchemist, and force them to choose sides, as the billionaire industrialist gives them the opportunity to be free of their powers forever.
Though this isn’t the end of the series by any means, we will find out once and for all who in the Academy will go on the path to becoming a hero, and more importantly, who’s headed to becoming the next great Marvel villain. We chatted with Gage about all of this, how long he’s had this plan in place, and whether the next arc will have any special guest stars (you may be surprised):
MTV Geek: The title of this arc set off little alarm bells in my head…Is this the end of Avengers Academy? Or just the roster we know and love (which would also, of course, make me very sad)?
Christos Gage: It’s not the end of the book. But it may be the end of Avengers Academy as we know it! After all, we have a history of big changes following big events.
Geek: Now that you’re in the thick of it, is this the end-game you’ve had in mind for the kids since you started? Or have you found that where you’ve taken them over the last thirty-odd issues has changed their individual journeys? Striker, for one, seems far less likely to turn out to be a villain now than he did back in issue one…
CG: For a while now, certainly the past year to year and a half, I’ve had a definite end point in mind for where I would want to leave these characters as a group. It allows for specific character journeys to change, and characters to come in and out, but in a general sense, I’ve known where I’d end things if the time came…Which, in today’s market, for a title that hasn’t been around since the sixties, is something I think you have to at least consider. I’ve also had specific thoughts on where I’d leave each character. Some of those points will be reached in “Final Exam.” Read More...
