With the Squadron Supreme set to replace the Avengers in Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness' Heroes Reborn event, the Marvel Universe will find itself with a new set of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Hyperion, the leader of the Squadron Supreme, will get the spotlight -- and a new team -- in a May one-shot titled Heroes Reborn: Hyperion & the Imperial Guard.
Writer Ryan Cady and artist Michele Bandini revisit a tale from Hyperion's past, as a teenage Hyperion teams up with the Imperial Guard for a mission to the Negative Zone. The Heroes Reborn one-shot also features a special preview of a spinoff series starring The Starjammers.
"We're fully embracing that metafiction in our oneshot -- diving head first into this new world that Jason and Ed have constructed," Cady told CBR. "That's what thrills me the most about this event. These aren't just stories of a different world; they're stories from a different world. It'll feel as retrospective and full as if you'd been reading issues of Hyperion and the Imperial Guard your entire life. And if you check the surprise sneak preview of Starjammers at the end of the book, you're gonna wish you could hop timelines just to preorder the rest of that series, too.
HEROES REBORN: HYPERION & THE IMPERIAL GUARD #1
- RYAN CADY (W) • MICHELE BANDINI (A) • Cover by CHRIS SPROUSE
- Variant Cover by BEN CALDWELL
- The teenage Hyperion’s cosmic quests with his Shi’ar friends near their end, but none of the young heroes are ready to say farewell. A quick mission in the Negative Zone sounds like the perfect coda to a storied fellowship...but what awaits Hyperion, Gladiator and the rest is horror and agony beyond their wildest nightmares!
- Also included in this issue: a special preview of the new spinoff series, THE STARJAMMERS!
The original Heroes Reborn was a massive crossover published between 1996-1997 with titles featuring such Marvel mainstays as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom and The Hulk. Marvel famously outsourced the event to Jim Lee's WildStorm Studios and Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios after the two former employees left the company to found Image Comics. During Heroes Reborn, Marvel relaunched Fantastic Four, Avengers, Iron Man and Captain America with new #1 issues, and Thor was retitled Journey Into Mystery. The story began with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom being reborn after seemingly dying while fighting Onslaught. In reality, they were transported to a pocket universe by Franklin Richards.
Marvel's new take on Heroes Reborn features a world where Tony Stark never built the Iron Man armor, Thor is a hard-drinking atheist who despises hammers, Wakanda is dismissed as a myth and Captain America was never found in the ice because there were no Avengers to find him. Instead, the Squadron Supreme of America has stepped up to become Earth's Mightiest Heroes, with Blade the only hero who remembers our original reality.
Heroes Reborn: Hyperion & the Imperial Guard #1 goes on sale in May from Marvel Comics.