AMAZING FANTASY starts out with an origin that is a good mixture of Spider-Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A mysterious organization called Webcorps has sent out an agent to find the ‘initiate’. While this agent is looking for the initiate, he must also defeat agents from an organization called the Sisterhood of the Wasp who look to find the initiate for themselves. Enter Anya, a young high school student who gets involved into something that she’s not even aware of how she got into it until its too late.
Fiona Avery has been one of those up and coming writers in the comic industry that really has nothing to prove to the industry. She has done a good number of writing job in the television industry with good success, so why move into comics? Why not? There’s a lot of risk involved in getting into this fickle industry of comic readers, but Marvel seems to see something in Avery. AMAZING FANTASY is a chance for Avery to shine in her own right.
Avery starts things out in the new series with a usual template for new characters. There’s a mysterious group of people looking for the lead character and that lead character stumbles into things unknowingly. Yeah, it’s a cookie cutter beginning, but really, if you’re just looking at this issue as that, you’re not giving Avery a chance. Avery has shown her ability to create and build characters if given the chance. NO HONOR is a perfect but brief opportunity for Avery. Other than that one 4-issue miniseries for Top Cow, Avery has been filling in and working on previously established characters like Bright, Rogue, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Anya and the other characters in this series are her first real chance to create, establish, and evolve a new set of characters. Avery is a writer that like move things forward, and I think that’s what this series will see.
J. Michael Straczynski is listed as the creative consultant on this issue, and maybe the series as a whole. I know that Avery is a friend and has been working with him during his work on RISING STARS and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, so there’s something he’s got in mind while consulting on this series. I think that there are some sub-plots that have been laid down in his run of AMAZING that could see some fruition in this series. First off, we’ve seen that there are two groups called Webcorps and the Sisterhood of the Wasp. If you’ve read some of Straczynski’s AMAZING run, you know that something could be building from that aspect of things. If not, it’s a big coincidence.
Mark Brooks is a personal favorite of mine. His early work for Tidal Wave Studios’s ATLAS were great. He went on to work for Dreamwave Studios and UDON and now has moved on to Marvel. His brief run on CABLE/DEADPOOL showed an evolving style from his early work and creating a distinct style of his own. AMAZING FANTASY is a series I hope to see Brooks working on for a long time to come. His linework is very clean and clear. The anime influences are still there, but this issue is definitly a step up from what Brooks has done before. I state over and over that a good writer is only made better by the help from their artist. A comic book can only hold on to a reader if the writing is good and is portrayed well by the artist and I think Avery and Brooks have done just that with this first issue.
AMAZING FANTASY has started off well. Like all new books, there is always room for improvement and I can see Avery and Brooks working well together and creating a fun and enjoyable series for readers to be reading for a long time to come.
