‘A-Force’ to Be Reckoned With: Marvel Announces All-Female Avengers Team

Faith D’Isa ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Executive Marketing Officer

Marvel announced earlier last week that they would be making a big announcement on the Friday morning episode of The View relating to their new comic arc, Secret Wars. Secret Wars has been billed as a “game-changer” in the Marvel comic universe, the company often using the tag “everything ends” in its promotional materials.

The news we got was certainly a game-changer.

On The View, Marvel announced “A-Force”, an all-new team of Avengers–all of whom are female. From the main piece of promotional art Marvel released, they’ve got all the bases covered. “We’ve purposefully assembled a team composed of very different characters — from disparate parts of the Marvel U, with very different power sets, identities and ideologies,” G. Willow Wilson, writer of the successful Ms. Marvel title and co-writer of A-Force said. “They’ll all have to come together to answer some big questions: What would you sacrifice to succeed? What is being a hero worth?”

Taking a closer look, it seems that ideology is taken to heart, with characters that otherwise would never have cause to meet either because of universe or timeline placement, all teaming up–you’ve got your basics, like She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel–but also bringing in more “fringe” characters like Pixie, and characters from edges of the universe like the newly created and well-recieved Spider-Gwen. We’re not completely sure of the full line-up, but the art leaves so much to be explored.

A particular new addition to the team is a brand new character, who Wilson and co-writer Marguerite Bennett (of Angela: Asgard’s Assassin) were given the liberty to create, called Singularity. Singularity is said to be “cosmically powered”; she’s a sentient pocket universe created during the uprise of Secret Wars.

What’s even cooler about Singularity is that she doesn’t particularly have a gender–but chooses to be female. A-Force is making leaps and bounds in terms of progressive comic books, even before it’s come out; but this isn’t surprising, considering it’s coming from a team of writers who have been known for their strong writing in this area.

We’ll know more and more about A-Force as its release date gets closer, but it’s obvious that the steps Marvel is taking in this department are big and bold; and I can’t wait to see what comes with this team and Secret Wars.