Marvel Announces New Great Lakes Avengers Series

Marvel Comics has announced another new Marvel NOW! title that will bring a long-dormant team back into the limelight. The Great Lakes Avengers are getting their own ongoing series, from writer Zac Gorman (Rick and Morty, Magical Game Time) and artist Will Robson (Star-Lord).

The Great Lakes Avengers were created by John Byrne in the pages of West Coast Avengers as a team from the Great Lakes region who, coincidentally, also called themselves Avengers. While the team has since recruited breakout stars like Squirrel Girl, who now carries her own solo series, and Deadpool (briefly), the new series will focus on four of the team’s original members – Mr. Immortal, Doorman, Flatman, and Big Bertha.

“This is my first Marvel book, my first superhero book,” Gorman tells Nerdist. “I’ve always loved the C-list characters, the obscure characters, and the comedy stuff. So, when I heard ‘Great Lakes Avengers,’ I immediately kind of latched on to that and thought it’d be a great book for me. But the Great Lakes region is where I’ve spent the majority of my life. I’ve lived in Detroit area and Chicago and the west side of Michigan and all around the Great Lakes, so it kind of seemed like a perfect fit right off the bat for me. So I just hit the ground running and started coming up with ideas for how I could make the series fresh again.”

While superstars Squirrel Girl and Deadpool may not be returning to the team, Editor Tom Brevoort promises plenty of new faces to fill out the group, as well as, well…

“They also have, as seen on our advance cover, a life-size cardboard Squirrel Girl stand-up because whenever there’s a photo op, if you have Squirrel Girl in the shot, she’s very popular, so it’ll get picked up and people will pay attention to it,” Brevoort said. “So they’ve got that in case anybody is paying attention to them. That way they can set it up and still seem like they’re Squirrel Girl’s buddies.”

Gorman, however, is convinced there’s plenty of star power already on the team.

“I did an interview with Marvel.com, and I’ve been talking it up, but I think that Doorman is going to be the breakout star,” Gorman said. “He’s kind of got a smaller part in the series, but his moments land pretty well. He’s got an interesting story, with some of the stuff built into his backstory in regards to his relationship with these cosmic forces. There’s a lot of potential when you have a guy who is a complete screw-up, who is very self-involved and doesn’t take his job seriously, but is also kind of responsible for the fate of the universe. He’s kind of my favorite, but I’ve been having fun with Flatman also because he has a lot of range that hasn’t really been explored in the past.”

Great Lakes Avengers #1 goes on sale this fall. Check out Robson’s cover and Laura and Mike Allred’s variant cover below.