WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Heroes Reborn #1 by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, Matthew Wilson, and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
The world of Heroes Reborn is a world without the Avengers, and it's a surprisingly nice one. Although there are shadows looming around its edges, this artificially created timeline has superpowered saviors of its own in the form of the Squadron Supreme, Marvel's team of Justice League surrogates like Hyperion and Nighthawk. And given how easily they handle twisted versions of Marvel's classic supervillains, the world seems to be better off without the Avengers.
While Blade might be the only hero who remembers the way the Marvel Universe should be, he also sees how, on a surface level, the Suadron has dealt with the threat of vampires permanently, and individual heroes are able to take on the kinds of threats that pushed entire teams of Avengers to their limits in the regular Marvel Universe.
Ever since their first appearance as part of a parallel Earth in 1971's Avengers #85 by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, the Squadron Supreme have been Marvel's stand-ins for DC's foremost super team. Across their appearances throughout the Marvel Multiverse, versions of the Squadron have been bastions of truth and justice in their own right, tyrannical dictators and sharp counters to Marvel's Avengers. When the Squadron has come to blows with the Avengers, few heroes have really been able to stop Hyperion or the group's other members for long.
Now, this incarnation of the team, the Squadron Supreme of America, is taken the team's tradition of showing the Avengers up to a new level.
Though the first iteration of the Squadron Supreme's time came to an unfortunate end decades after they were introduced, the most recent version of them are continuing on the proud tradition of showing up the Avengers at every possible turn. They've also embraced their status as tongue-in-cheek homage's to the core Justice League members in a far more obvious fashion than usual, with a sort of optimistic bravado highlighting their appearances no matter how deep in the midst of battle those might be.
Of course, all of this strikes an uncomfortable nerve with Blade for good reason, and even Nighthawk, the Squadron's resident Batman analogue, is starting to sneer at the unreality of his surroundings. is beginning to wonder if things are truly what they seem.
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Even with the knowledge that the powerful, malevolent force of Mephisto is at work behind the scenes, it's hard to ignore the difference that the Squadron Supreme has made in the absence of the Avengers. This comparatively idyllic version of the Marvel Universe isn't just indicative of the Justice League or their stand-ins overshadowing Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but how deeply grounded the Marvel Universe itself is compared to its DC counterpart.
While the heroes of the Marvel Universe have always had to deal with the grit of real human problems to some extent, the DC Universe is rooted in the magical unreality of places like Metropolis and Themyscira. Now, the Marvel Universe is choking on the Squadron Supreme's unreality, and the lingering pain of the real Marvel Universe might be the only thing that can turn the cracks in the Squadron Supreme's facade into deep chasms. The Squadron Supreme might seem better at saving the world than the Avengers, but the rules of their reality make that a far easier task than it is for Marvel's heroes.
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