In an interview on Newsarama today, Marvel fat cat Tom Brevoort teased this week's Avengers #29, in which Captain America will finally learn that he was mindwiped by the Illuminati, seventeen months after it originally happened. The move is a landmark in Jonathan Hickman's epic Avengers run, marking the first time a plot point will actually advance in the dense and slow-moving series.
"It’s going to send shockwaves of a seismic nature across both titles and accelerate the pace of events in a dramatic way," said Brevoort, who is clearly running out of ways to claim that a Marvel event will shake the Marvel Universe to its foundations. "Things will start to fly from this point on."
It's a bold claim. Hickman, whose Avengers run has already spanned almost 60 issues as well as the Infinity super-mega-crossover event, without anything exciting really happening. The Avengers actually managed to travel to space and engage in an epic war where the fate of the entire universe hung in the balance and it still felt like the book was just treading water. So much water, Nick Spencer was brought on to write a third series, Avengers World, so that there was more room for the plot to meander. But, according to Brevoort, things are going to change, and he really means it this time!
"For months now I’ve been saying in various interviews about Avengers and New Avengers, and even going back to Infinity because of the bigger stage and spotlight, that the stuff coming up in these two titles is about as big as it is possible to be – and I don’t say that lightly," continued Brevoort, who actually makes those exact claims about pretty much every single book Marvel publishes over and over again. It's kind of Marvel's gimmick.
Verging into territory that makes us wonder if Newsarama is mocking us with an Outhouse style parody interview, Brevoort went on, claiming, "Literally, if you pushed me to the wall I might be able to rack my brain and come up with something bigger and grander than where we’re going, but it would take a while."
We shit you not - those are all real quotes. Go read the interview and see for yourself.
Personally, we'll be shocked if Brevoort isn't hyping another Marvel comic with the same gusto by the end of the week. What was this article about again? Was it Hickman's mega-decompressed writing, or Brevoort's ridiculous hyperbole? Ah, fuck it. Pick up Avengers #29 tomorrow for the start of Civil War 2: This Time We'll Try Not to Kill Off a Black Guy for Cheap Story Heat.