How Marvel's U.S.Avengers Factor Into Avengers: No Surrender

The past several years have been turbulent for Marvel Comics’ mutant hero Sunspot. Roberto da Costa has gone from being a member of the Avengers, to the leader of both a renegade faction of the team and the former terrorist group A.I.M., to the leader of the U.S. government’s own team of Avengers. Then, in U.S.Avengers #10 he resigned as leader of both A.I.M. and the titular team. Throughout all those changes, his friend Sam Guthrie, better known as the hero Cannonball, has stood by him. So when Sunspot gets word that Sam, who was believed to have died during the chaos of Secret Empire, is still alive and in danger, he drops everything and recruits his former teammates for an intergalactic rescue operation.

That operation kicked off in U.S.Avengers #11, by writer Al Ewing and artist Paco Diaz, the first chapter of a two-part arc titled “Cannonball Run.” The story, which involves Skrulls and satirizes the iconic world and characters of Archie Comics, comes to a close in issue #12, which just happens to be the series final issue. That won’t be the end of the team or Ewing’s involvement with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, though. The writer and his cast will both be part of “No Surrender,” a weekly, 16-part event that kicks off in January and runs through Avengers #675-690.

CBR: In U.S.Avengers #11 you kicked off "Cannonball Run," an arc which is set on the planet of Kral X, also known as Glennbrook. What we saw of Glennbrook and its citizens, like monarch and "All-American" teenager Ritchie Redwood, are a satire some of Archie Comics' iconic characters and concepts, and the idea of what intergalactic races would make of the media Earth creates and consumes. What inspired this story?

Al Ewing: It's more an affectionate celebration than any kind of satire - the ultimate message of these two issues is very pro-Archie, you'll find. But we are also bringing back a concept from the older days of Marvel, in that a certain subset of the shape-changing alien race, the Skrulls, have always been deeply fascinated by Earth culture. The story's gone through various iterations - when I first thought it up, it was set in another dimension, and then the idea of the Kral system presented itself as a neater solution that didn't involve quite as much jumping through hoops.

Art from U.S.Avengers #12 by Paco Diaz and Jesus Aburtov

The "Archie" thing was the last thing to come along, but it ended up tying it all together. It's a fitting last adventure for the U.S.Avengers in their own book - they're going out much the same way they came in, in one last wild, fun, hopeful ride before the crap hits the fan in “No Surrender.”

In U.S.Avengers #12, you and Paco Diaz close out the series by sending the title characters on a mission to Kral X to rescue Cannonball. I know you have experience writing these sort of closing one door while opening another type issues, but what was it like wrapping this series in particular? What sort of hints and teases can you offer up about the action in issue #12?

Well, since you've mentioned Paco, let me just say how wonderful he's been throughout the process. His clean, sure style is perfect in a lot of ways for this kind of thing, and he's got no problem following me on my wilder flights of fancy, or rolling with the various twists and turns of the story.

Wrapping this series was a little bittersweet - in some ways, it's coming to the end of a long journey for me, since I've been writing Avengers teams in one form or another almost since I started at Marvel, and there's a through-line throughout the various books. In some ways, Roberto's succeeded in what he set out to do in New Avengers - he's out-lived S.H.I.E.L.D. - but as we saw in #10, he's had to give away everything he built to avoid becoming the new S.H.I.E.L.D., just as bad as the old.

In #12, we see the U.S.Avengers finally reunited - not much of a spoiler, since it's always about the "how" not the "if" with me - but at least one member's future is in serious doubt by the end, and things are only going to get worse. Issue #12 will offer a tease of just how bad things get for the team in “No Surrender.”

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You and co-writers Mark Waid and Jim Zub have been working on "No Surrender" for several months. How does it feel to be collaborating on this story with Jim and Mark? Are each of you working on individual issues, or are you all collaborating on each of the 16 issues?

Every single issue has some of me in it - sometimes it's just a couple of pages, sometimes it's half an issue or more, and sometimes it's an equal third, but readers will have to guess for themselves who's writing what pages. You might be able to spot the occasional writing tic here and there, but we've managed to merge into a pretty seamless writing machine - in fact, I can reveal that every issue is now fully plotted and, barring any alterations for the lettering drafts, entirely dialogued as well, before the first issue of the weekly storyline is even out! That's probably the best sign of how well the collaboration has been working; that level of efficiency.

Between Jim's action storytelling skills and inexhaustible energy and drive, Mark's experience, expertise and deep character knowledge, Alanna Smith's problem-solving mojo, Tom Brevoort's uber-editorial ear and whatever the hell I've been doing, we've formed a writing Voltron that's stronger than any one of us alone. I've been in writing collaborations before, and they've always had more ups than downs, but this might be the smoothest yet in terms of the size and importance of the project and just how much we managed to achieve in the time. And it reads great, too! Avengers fans will not be disappointed.

What's it like writing your U.S.Avengers cast as part of this larger series? It seems the amount of growth and change Sunspot has gone through would make him especially interesting. Is Roberto in a leadership role in "No Surrender?"

Roberto does get to do one of his trademark Mad Plans, but the other characters get to be stars as well. There's nobody who doesn't get at least a moment. The General, of all people, gets his time in the spotlight, and fans of Toni Ho should be relatively happy with us too - she ends up taking a pretty central role in things, and those who were worried she might fade back into the background from whence she came now that she's no longer in armor can rest easy. The story goes where it wants to go, and it wanted to go to a place where Toni leads a last stand against an impossible threat. What threat? Now that would be telling.

What's it like getting a chance to return to some of the characters from your other Avengers-related books, like Sam Wilson? Will characters from The Ultimates like Blue Marvel and Spectrum be part of this story as well?

It's a little too soon for me to pick up Blue Marvel and Spectrum again - much as I'd like to write them again, I want to see what other writers with different perspectives bring to their story. As for Sam Wilson, while I've written a couple of beats for him here and there, it's mostly Mark who's been in charge of him, seeing as he's leader of Mark's Avengers team. That said, I got to write a nice moment for Hawkeye, and I had a great time writing Wonder Man again after that one issue of Avengers Assemble.

The other fun element of a story like "No Surrender" is, it allows you to write a number of Marvel characters that you have yet to tackle. Who are some characters that you haven't written before that you're especially enjoying writing?

Living Lightning comes to mind - just "Lightning" these days. He's back in the first issue, and we catch a glimpse of what he's been up to since the last time we saw him. He's got a character arc running throughout the sixteen weeks that's been a lot of fun to write, and hopefully comes to a satisfying end and leaves him in a place where he can move on to cool new adventures.

There's also a nice action-detective beat for Red Wolf that I got to help out with - that's connected to one of the Hawkeye beats I mentioned earlier, so fans of that particular team will be happy. And there's another character I won't mention just yet - but I will say I've been interested in writing him for a very long time.

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What can you tell us about the inciting incident and threats the Avengers are up against in "No Surrender?"

Issue one - the Earth is stolen! There's a spate of natural disasters all over the globe - tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes - and on top of that a mysterious force is targeting Earth's heroes. And if that wasn't enough, expect the Black Order and an all-new, all-violent Lethal Legion to join the party!

The other plus point is the reappearance of the Founding Avenger you never knew about... until now! And on the villain's side, expect the return of one of the Avengers' oldest foes, as well as a brand-new giga-threat that's been waiting since the dawn of the Seventh Cosmos... to take a terrifying revenge! I'm sorry to lapse into the old Stan Lee-style banter, true believer, but this one truly has it all!

Bringing the story to life in "No Surrender" is your frequent collaborator Paco Medina as well as artists Kim Jacinto, and Pepe Larraz. What's it like working with these guys on this big of a project? What do you enjoy most about their styles?

They're three amazing talents, each with their own special something. Paco Medina's the master of action and character, and he's one of my very favorite collaborators - at this point, we're a fairly well-oiled machine, and when I get a page back from him, I instantly know exactly what to do with it in terms of dialogue. He's got one of the hardest jobs, in my opinion - what job that is, I won't spoil - and he's throwing his all into it. Pepe Larraz I've worked with once before, and he was phenomenal then, and he's phenomenal now - someone else who can merge action beats and character moments with flair. Meanwhile, Kim's been a star - I'd describe his work as a little moodier, which is good, because he gets to draw some incredible emotional scenes, on grand and more human scales, and he knocks those moments out of the park every time. And of course, he's an action superstar as well. They're the perfect three artists for this project, and now that we've pretty much finished writing, we can sit back and enjoy the art pouring in.

The size of "No Surrender's" cast reminds of some of the classic Avengers epics from the '90s like Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco's Avengers Forever. Is that what you and your collaborators are aiming for on this project?

I've accidentally called it Avengers Forever more than once in conversation. That's kind of the gold standard in a lot of ways, the bar to clear. We're doing something very different from what that was, but at the same time, we're telling a grand story on an epic scale, and right at the core of it is the idea of what it means to be an Avenger.

I'm incredibly confident in the work we've done here - every single issue is packed to the brim with action, excitement, adventure and even an important development or two, if that's what you're into. It might be the purest superhero action story I've ever been involved in. I can't wait for you all to read it.