Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training (v. 1) [Hardcover]

Dan Slott (Author), Stefano Caselli (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2007

The Civil War is over, and from now on, this is the new face of the Marvel Universe - The Initiative! Whose side were you on? If you were pro-registration, then there's one hell of a price to pay: you're in the army now. Fall in with Yellowjacket, War Machine, She-Hulk, Justice and The Gauntlet as they train the heroes of tomorrow for the super-powered conflicts of today! Marvel's army of super heroes has just become a super hero army! Also featuring The Mighty Avengers and a new generation of Marvels. Collecting Avengers: The Initiative #1-6.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (December 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785121609
• ISBN-13: 978-0785121602
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,165,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Say hello to super hero boot camp!, January 12, 2008

By 

Ken Baynton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training (v. 1) (Hardcover)

Sure Iron Mans on the cover, but hes not really part of the story here. Although his stamp is firmly in place in this story about hero boot camp where you either make the grade or lose your powers. Primarily run by Yellow Jacket, War Machine, The Gauntlet, Henry Gyrich and ex New Warrior Justice. The story focuses on a handful of recruits and their trials and tribulations. You get a glimpse at what a total *sshole Gyrich STILL is after all these years, how morally bankrupt Henry Pym has become, and why Gauntlet shows the new recruits so much "Tough Love". As you can probably tell i find the people who run camp more interesting than the students. And that is mostly true, some of the new heros introduced are interesting as well though. Trauma and Hard Ball in particular. The art is nice and the writing is really above par. The stories vary and since the writers aren't married to any these just introduced student/heroes you literally NEVER KNOW whats going to happen next to these poor kids. A fun ride, more than worth the price.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Initiative Kicks off With a Bang, February 9, 2008

By 

Vasconcelos Crisogono (Zurich, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training (v. 1) (Hardcover)

Avengers: The Initiative is joy to read. Slott's writing makes this book good both in collected format and in chapterized reads. The first six issues of the title are mostly character driven, despite the huge character Slott has created, he manages to focus each issue in each character. This books is not as light hearted as the stuff Slott is known for (She-Hulk), its an extremely serious book, with political links to it and it also finds space to be funny. Slott manages to surprise us all the time and in these six issues of A:TI more stuff happens than in years worth of stories in other books and somehow, none of it feels rushed.

The first three issues are all stand alone and are all EXTREMELY enjoyable. The first issue introduces the new cast to the reader and it doesn't focus too much on a single character. The second issue focuses mainly on Cloud 9 and her guilt of what happened in the first issue of the title, in this installment The Initiative and the Rangers attack Hydra, and the action sequence is very enjoyable. Issue three has a guest appearance by no other than your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and this issue focuses a lot on Komodo, once again this issue manages to tell a fun done-in-one story and heck, Slott writes a great Spider-Man, thank god Marvel put him in the Spidey Braintrust.

Issues Four and Five are Tie-Ins to the World War Hulk summer event at Marvel. The issues don't add much to the story in the WWH (though, we do get a reason why Iron Man's armor fails to kill the Hulk), but they help move forward the character arcs going on in the book. The first part (The Green Zone) focuses on Hardball and his moment of desperation. The second part is great as well, it debuts the Shadow Initiative, the black ops team, which is a great addition to the cast, specially with Trauma (my favourite character in this book) in it, this book also focuses largely on Trauma's character and his developments at controlling his power.

Issue 6 is the weakest of the bunch. Despite the story being well written, a nice done-in-one by Slott, which I hope will have ramifications in the future of the initiative, by the art by Steve Uy is BAD. His covers for some of the upcoming issues look much better than the work he puts here, if you can get someone to read this book outloud to you, your enjoyment of it will be higher.

All in all, Basic Training is a very solid start to this series. It is smartly written by Slott and has some great art provided by Stefano Caselli, who, despite not being mentioned above, is crucial to the overall enjoyment of this collection.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of The Best Things To Emerge from Civil War, December 31, 2007

By 

Zauriel (Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training (v. 1) (Hardcover)

This is by far my favorite series to emerge from Marvel post-Civil War. The Intiative is Tony Starks idea fro each state to have a superhero team to look after the sate. In this story we are focused in one about five recruits to the Iniative each of them has a unique set of powersa and issues in using there powers. They are forced through a grueling camp to train them how to use thier powers. If you just want a look at what Civil War spawned I suggest you take a look at this one.