Marvel has released a first look at Marc Silvestri's variant cover for "Avengers Assemble" #1 written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Mark Bagley. Silvestri's cover joins a long list of variants for the upcoming Avengers series including one by Arthur Adams, a blank variant and retailer variants. "Avengers Assemble" takes place in main Marvel continuity and features the heroes from Joss Whedon's upcoming "Avengers" film. The series follows in the tradition of other mainstream Marvel U books timed to movie releases including "Invincible Iron Man" and "The Mighty Thor."
In 2011, Bendis explained his approach to the book and his focus for the launch. "This will be an example of everything we are doing right at Marvel coming at fans of the current set of Avengers books," Bendis told CBR. "It's in continuity and it will focus more on the movie cast, but the difference is it's not going to be some clumsy tie-in. I told Marvel that it would be really great if the book had some stuff going on that was pretty surprising and shocking to both fans of the book and fans of the movie. They said that would be great. I was writing 'Daredevil' right around the time when the movie came out. I liked that the stuff I got to do was so shocking that people could go, 'Oh did you like the movie? Check this out.' And I wanted to do something similar with 'Avengers Assemble'; something that wasn't just a regurgitation of the movie or a soft pedaled version of the movie. It was about using certain movie elements that we all found attractive and building upon them to create this new story that would really blow the roof off the place."
The writer further elaborated on his plans for the upcoming series in a recent press conference call with Bendis, Bagley and editor Tom Brevoort. "It isn't just the movie, it's a completely new story with completely different stakes," he said. Bendis further teased "Avengers Assemble" will also slightly spin out of events in "Avengers vs. X-Men." "We have an opportunity to debut something that's completely new in this series that Marvel is going to debut in 'AvX' and one of the places I'll end up in for my post-Avengers career."
Check out the solicit and Silvestri's variant cover below.
Marvel is proud to present your first look at acclaimed artist Marc Silvestri's explosive variant cover forAvengers Assemble #1!Follow the adventures of Earth's Mightiest Heroes in this perfect jumping-on point featuring Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Black Widow & Hawkeye!The all-new Zodiac are plotting to take down the Marvel Universe, but who are they? And when you see who's pulling the strings -- no fan is going to want to play catch-up on this series.
So be sure to pick upAvengers Assemble #1,hitting comic shops everywhere and the Marvel Comics app, this March!
Join the conversation on Twitter with#Avengers.
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE#1 (JAN120638)
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #1 SILVESTRI VARIANT (JAN120640)
Written byBRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Art by Cover by MARK BAGLEY
Variant Cover by MARC SILVESTRI
Rated T+ ...$3.99
FOC - 2/13/12, ON SALE - 3/14/12