Marvel Comics' Avengers are founded on a simple, but incredibly practical principle: “Earth's Mightiest Heroes” joining together to defeat the foes they couldn't on their own.

It's a pragmatic concept that's led to the formation of numerous Avengers teams. In recent months, it's been revealed to have even united a band of prehistoric heroes to take on an incredibly powerful cosmic threat to the planet. Readers first met these Avengers of 1,000,000 B.C. in last year's Marvel Legacy one-shot by writer Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic, and in May, they'll see that team's legacy extend into the modern age as Aaron and artist Ed McGuinness kick-off a new volume of Avengers as part of Marvel's “Fresh Start” Initiative.

This new volume launches with an arc that pits Captain America, Tony Stark, Thor, the Black Panther, Carol Danvers, Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes); and their ally Doctor Strange against a host of Dark Celestials, much like the one their prehistoric predecessors battled. In the months ahead, readers will learn more about the 1,000,000 B.C. Avengers, and see the modern team take on new threats as well as classic ones given new spins.

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CBR spoke with Aaron about the scope and scale of his Avengers plans, his individual cast members, the rotating membership spot on his team, and the role Loki and other elements from his Thor run will play in the book.

CBR: Jason, your Marvel work over the past few years has involved big, imaginative stories with a colossal scope and scale. You're currently doing that in Thor. You did it with the Marvel Legacy one-shot you worked on last year, and it looks like in Avengers you're looking to do an even bigger and crazier story. Is that a fair description of your approach to the book?

Jason Aaron: Yeah, I think so. This stuff definitely builds directly on the seeds we planted in Marvel Legacy in terms of the prehistoric Avengers stuff and the Celestials stuff. A lot of what I've done in Thor will also play into Avengers.

This is kind of the next step up for me in my work at Marvel. I'm spreading out and getting a chance to play with a lot of the toys I haven't been able to play with yet. I'm also trying to reflect the Marvel Universe as a whole and everything that goes on in the different books, and shape quite a bit of the Marvel U as well.

I consider a lot of the stories you've been telling are Jack Kirby-like in that they're super-imaginative. It feels like with Avengers though you're leveling up in Kirby in terms of the genres you're playing with and the scale.

Right, in my mind there was always a healthy dose of Kirby in the Thor stuff I was writing. And, yes, with Avengers it's a much bigger story in that we've got a big cast. I wanted an iconic group of Avengers that were very much the heavy hitters of the Marvel Universe. I also want every arc of this book to feel like an event. These really are Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and they get together on “a day unlike any other.” I want these stories to feel like events in terms of the characters involved, the stakes, and the epic scope of things.

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One of the best aspects of writing the Avengers is the chance to write a diverse and iconic cast of characters. Your cast has sort of the trinity of iconic Avengers in that it includes Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Thor Odinson. This will be the first time these three have been together as Avengers in years. They're reuniting though after some pretty tumultuous adventures that saw one of them replaced by a villain and the others hand over their heroic identities to a new generation for a while. So what is it like for Tony, Steve and Thor to be back together?

That's really a big part of our first issue. Those three guys sit down for drinks for the first time in a while and talk about where they go from here. So this team really comes together over the course of our first story. They're all pulled into the story in different ways

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So it's very much an Avengers team that starts with those three core characters. And like you said, They haven't been part of this book in quite a while. So it's sort of a celebration of bringing those guys back together, but it's also very much a book that looks forward. We're not looking to pick the bones of past Avengers stories. We're not looking to recreate the same line up or feel from previous stories. This is very much about doing something new for a new age.

Your lineup also includes two fan favorite Avengers who recently worked together as members of the Ultimates, the Black Panther and Captain Marvel. You briefly wrote T'Challa for an arc back during the Secret Invasion event. How does it feel to return to the character? And had you written much with Carol Danvers before this book?

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Avengers #2 by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales and David Curiel

I've always loved T'Challa, and I've always wanted to get back to writing him. Now of course it's a very different world in terms of Black Panther. Everybody knows who that character is now. So it makes sense and feels totally right to have him very much at the forefront of this Avengers team.

I think if I've written Carol Danvers at all it was for a panel here and there. So I haven't written her in any real, significant sense, and she was a character who kind of intimidated me in that I didn't initially have a handle on the character. It felt like she needed to be in the group, but initially I wasn't sure what to do with her or how to write her. I think I was able to work through that. So I'm now really excited for her to be part of this book, and what I can do with her. She's another character that's on the cusp. Her movie will be out before you know it and we'll have a lot more people who know about the character.

So this book is about boiling our characters down to who they are and what makes them cool; why we should be excited about them, and what their roles in the story are. I think both Carol and the Panther have very specific and exciting roles in Avengers

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You've written gamma powered characters before, but I don't believe Jennifer Walters played a role in your Hulk run, correct?

No, she didn't. She popped up in Thor #700, which was kind of the precursor to this, I knew she was going to be part of the Avengers at that point. I liked the idea of having a Hulk on the team, but I wasn't interested in doing Banner again. I was very interested in Jennifer Walters though.

This will be a continuation of everything she's been going through over the past couple years; spinning out of the pages of Civil War II and her solo series that picked up from that. This continues on from those stories, but it also takes her in a bit of a different direction and tries to do a Jennifer Walters Hulk that we haven't seen before.

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The events of this first arc will really change her. It changes what it means when she's a Hulk, what she can do, what her powers and power levels are. I think that will be some fun stuff to play with going forward.

Rounding out your team are two mystical powerhouses, Ghost Rider and Doctor Strange. It seems like Robbie Reyes might be new readers sort of perspective on the Avengers, and I understand Doctor Strange is just with the team for this initial mission, correct?

Yeah, Robbie Reyes is definitely the new guy on the block. He's never really been part of an event like this. He also hasn't been a superhero for very long. He still doesn't understand what he is or what he can be. We saw a little bit of that in the Marvel Legacy one-shot. I think he's still growing and learning stuff.

That's also a very big part of this first arc. None of the other characters know him or know what to do. They know Ghost Rider, but they don't know this kid. So it's fun to throw him in the mix of these world shaking events and watch him step up in a big way.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Avengers #2 by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales and David Curiel

It's also really cool to see Ed McGuinness draw his Hell Charger. I love the idea of an Avenger who always shows up in a car, and it's a pretty bad-ass car.

And, yes, Doctor Strange is a part of this first arc, which involves the Prehistoric Avengers and there's a few different modern incarnations of those Avengers in this line up. He won't be sticking around for the long term, though. His slot will be more of a rotating one. Sometimes it will be filled. Sometimes it won't. We'll have different characters popping up there from time to time.

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I already know the next character that will take that slot. I think it will be a bit of a surprise, but that's a few issues away.

I like that. You get the thrill of an iconic Marvel team book, but that rotating slot also adds in some Marvel Team-Up style fun.

Yeah. I want this to really be a book that covers the entire breath of the Marvel Universe. So the coolest locations in the Marvel U and all the different beats that a superhero can walk. I want to bring in different characters from different corners. Strange was kind of the first one of those characters and we'll see more. That said, we'll also see some old favorite from time to time as well.

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You've got a pretty large cast in Avengers. So, will there be room for supporting characters like Jarvis and Robbie Reyes' kid brother, Gabe? Or will you be using the limited space you have to focus more on your central cast?

I'd like to do more with Jarvis and a support staff. I have some ideas, but a lot of it is a matter of space. I wanted to keep our cast at seven members for the most part, sometimes it will be eight, because I remember what it's like to write a team book with a pretty sprawling cast. At a certain point, you just run out of pages. It's hard to give everybody their moment and due.

So, I wanted to keep this line up pretty tight. We will see Robbie's brother, Gabe, though. I don't know if he'll be a huge part of things. This book is very much about what Robbie gets up to once he gets outside of his usual neighborhood. You certainly will see some supporting characters and support staff further down the line though.

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You're working with artist Ed McGuinness on this first arc of Avengers. What's it like to reunite with him on such a huge title?

It's good to be working with Ed again after Amazing X-Men. He and I had a blast bringing Nightcrawler back to life. We had a lot of plans for that book and wanted to do a long run together, but I ended up having to leave that so I could do Star Wars. So it's great to reunite with him on this.

Ed's also come up with some great idea on his own. The Dark Celestial host are brand new characters all designed by Ed. After that we'll have a brand new Avengers headquarters for him to design.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Avengers #2 by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales and David Curiel

Let's conclude by talking about stories and adversaries we'll see in Avengers. You kick things off with the Dark Celestials.

Yes, the Dark Celestials are connected to all the stuff we've seen with the Celestials in the past, and going forward we'll feature new threats as well as some old ones we'll bring out and dust off or use in a different sort of way.

Then, between our different arcs, we'll do stories featuring the prehistoric Avengers. The first one of those is drawn by Sara Pichelli and it involves the origin of the prehistoric Ghost Rider.

So those prehistoric characters play a role in our first arc and their battle against that Celestial villain was kind of the beginning of this story that will play out in the present day. So we'll see those characters come back again and again as things move forward.

Finally, as the writer of Avengers, which features Thor, and the continuing writer of Thor's solo title you have the opportunity to reward readers of both books with some bits of connective tissue. Will we see some of that right away?

I don't know about right away, but certainly as things go along you'll see a lot of connective tissue between the two books. It's been pretty clear where we're headed in Thor. With the War of the Realms there are some pretty big battles in the future and you can definitely expect to see the Avengers get involved in that in some capacity.

I know Loki is a big part of what you're doing over in Thor, but it feels like with his ties to the Avengers it would be natural for him to pop up in this book as well.

Yes, Loki is in fact part of this first arc. You can't really bring a team of Avengers together without Loki. He plays a part in both this first arc of Avengers and the first arc of the new volume of Thor. Loki is up to a lot. These stories will kind of tie into everything he's been doing over in Gerry Duggan's Infinity minis and Doctor Strange. So we're going to look at everything he's been doing across all these books.