Heroes Reborn: America’s Mightiest Heroes Omnibus

Heroes Reborn: America's Mightiest Heroes

by Jason Aaron, Marvel Various (Writer)

Discover a world without Avengers! Tony Stark never built an iron armor. Thor is a hard-drinking atheist who despises hammers. Wakanda is dismissed as a myth. Captain America was never found in the ice. Instead, this planet has always been protected by Earth's Mightiest Heroes: the Squadron Supreme of America! But who is responsible for this altered Earth? Why is the vampire-hunting Blade the one man who remembers how things should be? And what will he do about it? It's the complete saga of a world reborn, featuring familiar faces as you've never seen them before! Collecting HEROES REBORN (2021) #1-7; HEROES RETURN #1; HEROES REBORN: HYPERION & THE IMPERIAL GUARD; HEROES REBORN: PETER PARKER, THE AMAZING SHUTTERBUG; HEROES REBORN: MAGNETO & THE MUTANT FORCE; HEROES REBORN: YOUNG SQUADRON; HEROES REBORN: SIEGE SOCIETY; HEROES REBORN: SQUADRON SAVAGE; HEROES REBORN: MARVEL DOUBLE ACTION; HEROES REBORN: AMERICAN KNIGHTS; HEROES REBORN: NIGHT-GWEN; and HEROES REBORN: WEAPON X & FINAL FLIGHT.

Genres: Marvel, Comics

568 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2022

About the author

Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today.

Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors.

In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry.

Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo.

In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009.

In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum.

After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've struggled with the entirety of Jason Aaron's Avengers run and this hasn't changed that. Blaze finds himself living in a reality where the Avengers were never assembled, and the Squadron Supreme of America are the world's protectors / violators. The series goes to to show in details how a non-Avengers reality will be as we get to see this reality's Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Thor, Reed Richards, mutants, aliens etc. For what the story lacks in originality it makes up a little bit for in scope and pretty awesome continuity checking.

This feels like a COVID pandemic project, where Aaron had some spare time on his hands? Obviously inspired by both the ridiculously original genius alternate Marvel reality event Age of Apocalypse, as well as the original Heroes Reborn, but it's the lack of originality for the core concept that makes this a wasted opportunity, although once again huge props to the remarkable continuity of the detail it went into creating a 'What if the Avengers never were' reality.

And just to rub it in, this series has some of the meatiest Black hero roles in a major event with Blade, T'Challa, Luke Cage and Misty Knight(!) getting solid air time. Overall a 6 out of 12, Three Star read.

Marvel reading order: King in Black -> Heroes Reborn -> Infinite Destinies

2023 read

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is an interesting iteration of Marvel's version of DC's Justice League, I suppose. This group is definitely more brutal than other groups I remember reading about (well, other than that hard-core group composed of members from different realities that attacked Atlantis and ripped Namor's head from his body), and it shows in the series. The artwork in the main series was s0-so for me; there were some solid pictures in the main series, but most of it felt "meh" to me. The tie-in issues were a bit of a mixed bag for me, too (although there were some storylines I wished had gone on for another issue or three to explore those lines a bit further like the one with Cassandra Nova taking over Magneto's body while the Squadron Supreme was attacking the mutant's island refuge). The pacing was a bit "off" for me because of the numerous flashbacks throughout the main issues of the series.

This series does not give us time to "explore" this alternate world like the twelve-issue Squadron Supreme series did; I cannot decide how much the "flashbacks" helped the story progress. I suppose some of it was helpful whereas some of them were not; the more helpful flashbacks were the "short stories" at the end of each issue and then the other "tie-in" issues created for this limited series.

One thing I found mildly amusing was how I had to keep reminding myself that each time the Squadron members (especially Dr. Spectrum) referred to "God", they were actually referring to Mephisto. Mephisto has created a cosmic cube of some kind that allows Phil Coulson to recreate reality into the image that Mephisto wants. So the author was kinda showing us how twisted and perverted and unpleasant the world would be if the devil were truly, fully in charge and there was no benevolent God in charge of everything and holding creation together. So, yeah, it was interesting and somewhat amusing that an atheist would write such a story showing the potential for how bad a world could be if fully left to the devices of a demonic entity.

This series was really odd, though. The Squadron Supreme are the most powerful beings on this planet, and yet they fear creating international incidences by violating the air space and territories of other Terran countries? That makes zero sense at all. I mean, Canada notwithstanding, the Squadron fears going into Africa to search for a mythological civilization lost in the sands of time? And yet this same group has zero issues at all going into outer space and annihilating other alien races and their civilizations? Dr. Spectrum alone has wiped out entire alien races, entire alien civilizations, on his own, and yet we are to believe he fears crossing international borders and boundaries to search for the answer to a mystery in another nation? I did not buy that at all. So perhaps that is an implicit inconsistency that was built into this reality to further Mephisto's agenda? Otherwise, it's a really stupid "plot point" to have.

I did not buy that Black Panther could run as fast as Blur could run, either. Unless that was also something Mephisto built into this reality, I did not believe that Black Panther being able to take on the characteristics and/or abilities of his or her opponents a la the Super-Adaptoid or DC's Parasite (granted, I have not read any of the Black Panther runs, so I do not know how much of his backstory has been retconned to give him this ability). In retrospect, though, it is probably safe to assume that it is probably a "glitch" Mephisto built into this reality because of how Blade remembered what reality should be like and the "fact" that Captain America was still alive and not dead, or how the Hulk remembered Steve Rogers and was looking for him for help.

I know the story basically takes place overnight for Blade, but I still found myself wondering how long it takes place in the timeline of the story itself. It seems like it was maybe a week? In any case, it was amusing to read (see) how much some of these characters mirrored their DC counterparts and whatnot. Nighthawk was nuts as Marvel's "Batman", that is for certain! I would say he was the closest to mirroring DC's character except that Nighthawk gains "super strength" after the sun sets whereas Batman "remains" a man; both characters have that distrust of everybody else, both characters "know everything" (it seems like; at the very least, they never reveal more than they have to at any given moment); one "major" difference is that Batman at least seems to care for his teammates on some level whereas this iteration of Nighthawk no longer seems to care about any of his teammates (or hardly anybody else, for that matter). it is funny - as I am typing this, it struck me how really bland the other Squadron Supreme characters kind-of are in comparison; it seems like Nighthawk might be the best fleshed-out character of the team since he stands out the most to me. Nighthawk was a real jerk in these stories and he really reminded me of the Nighthawk from the Supreme-universe in Marvel's "Max" line of comics. At the same time, there are so many remarks and comparisons and whatnot made comparing Nighthawk to Batman that I could not quite decide if it was meant to make a mockery of Batman or not.

In any case, Power Princess (Princess Zarda) was pretty awesome in various respects. Maybe hilarious is a better way to put it. She loves to fight, she loves to brawl, she loves to wage war. She seems like she'd be "perfect" for either Ares or Hercules, to be honest. There are some great images of her, too. I loved the image of her in issue 6 when she is fighting All-Gog - she just looks totally bad-to-the-bone and not somebody you'd want to mess with. The 'one-shot' page of her and Namor was "good" in a crazy way - probably more the "story" behind the image and Zarda's thoughts about how "You simply haven't lived until you've made love on the seafloor while sharks feed on the Nazis you've just torn to pieces." That, to be honest, is probably the second greatest line in this compilation (series) [the first being when Matt Murdoch asks, "He created the world around us, y'know? All of us, in his own image. We are pale reflections of he who breathed life into us. And yet, every day, I look at the people who worship him, and all I see in them is violence, hatred, and bitterness. We vile creatures, Commissioner Cage. And I ask myself, if we are the reflections then what does Mephisto truly look like?"] I also loved that she killed this universe's version of the Green Goblin. Another great moment in the series. It was hilarious to me that Hercules was laughing at her like he was when she was questioning him, and Thor regaining his memory as she was punching him to no avail was pretty cool, too. Rock on, Thor! I also thought it was hilarious when she killed Goblin and made a disparaging remark about how she will never understand why the men let their "rogues gallery" live or why they even have a "rogues gallery". It was funny how it made such a mockery of this "staple" in comics - that heroes have a gallery of rogues they cycle through in terms of fighting for one reason or another.

I think the "saddest" story had to be on the "one-shot" involving Hyperion's time with the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guardsman Oracle falling in love with Hyperion and planning to return to Earth with him only to be infected by that "Brood-Virus" in that "pocket universe" and dying as a result was heart-breaking; I thought that gave Hyperion some good and much needed character development. I'm just not sure how he is supposed to be written in this series. Sometimes he seems pretty hard-core (like when he killed the Hulk) with a solid core of beliefs, and then other times it's like he's totally confused and naïve and doesn't have a clue on what to do next or how he should respond. He is "more likeable" than Nighthawk, but I really do not think that is a compliment in the context of these stories. He kinda reminds me of the time Batman was an utter @$$ and told Superman the only time Superman inspired the universe was when he died. How much does Hyperion truly inspire people? Well, probably mostly the people of the United States, I suppose. But how much does he truly inspire people? We are told that he does, but does he really?

I did not expect to see Wolverine kill Hyperion, either. Now that was crazy! However, it was a nice touch to have Wolverine's claws imbued with strong enchantments that allowed him to kill Hyperion like he did. A nice throwback to Superman being vulnerable to magic and able to be cut by magical weapons. Granted, Hyperion gets his revenge after returning to life, somehow, and going after Wolverine like he does. Hyperion has Dr. Spectrum take Wolverine to an airless planet (moon?) and leaves Wolverine there to die. A great idea on how to kill this unkillable man and well-written (as it even catches Wolverine by surprise).

One thing about Hyperion - I really do not "get" why he keeps Nighthawk around. The Hulk is supposed to be a friend of his, and yet he kills the Hulk without any qualms or compunctions. What is it about Nighthawk that prevents Hyperion from killing him? What is there about Nighthawk that Hyperion leaves him alive? I can see absolutely nothing in these issues that tells me Hyperion should have allowed Nighthawk to go on living (especially after this universe's version of Marvels "Civil War" even that occurred so many years ago). It is not like the two men are a comparison of contrasts, in my opinion. Sure, there is that issue where the Nighthawk accidentally kills the Falcon a la Gwen Stacy and then promptly beats the crap out of Goblin to the point of nearly killing him before stopping (a la Batman and the Joker) and how it is supposed to be some "telling character development" that "defines" Blackhawk's character and moral compass (even to the point of using the whole "one bad day" shtick throughout the series), but Nighthawk still crosses the line (in my opinion) more than Batman ever does and Nighthawk's pulling back like he did with Goblin does not make him any better (or worse) than Hyperion in my opinion. In any case, the "relationship" between Hyperion and Nighthawk is definitely more antagonistic than that between Batman and Superman; I think there is more mutual trust and respect between Batman and Superman as well than there is between Hyperion and Batman. It also felt like the author was going for a "conflicted hero" with Hyperion and I don't think he pulled it off.

Dr. Spectrum was nuts. He was hard-core in his beliefs, yes, but he was still nuts. I was thinking he might be what Hal Jordan could have been like if his ring did not have the issue with the color yellow, but other than when he flipped out and became Parallax, Hal has never struck me as being as hard-core or "hard-edged" like Spectrum was in this book. In addition, I really do not ever remember Hal ever attributing anything to being "God's will" or "Might Makes Right" or being all about "the American Way." So kinduvan iteration of Hal Jordan but not quite. He struck me as just as nuts as Blur but in a different sort of way.

It was hilarious that Thor's horn of mead turned into Mjolnir. It was absolutely freaking nuts when Hyperion blew through Galactus's head and killed him like it did. I did not expect that at all! It was hard-core and pretty hilarious after the initial shock of seeing that image on the page wore off. I know I said the artwork, overall, was pretty meh for me in the series and was more "off than on" point, but I did love the artwork in issue #4, with Dr. Spectrum fighting Rocket Racoon and Groot. I am not sure why, but I loved that artwork. The Goblin's Dark Squadron was a funny riff of the Dark Avengers; they looked more like a joke of a team than any kind of real competition for the Squadron Supreme (although it would have been interesting to read a story involving a fight between Hyperion and Sentry).

Nighthawk's plan to draw out Baron Zemo was crazy, although I did like seeing Scott Lang, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanov in action in that issue. It was also interesting to me that four of the Squadron members died in that mission and were never replaced (some of Zemo's team died as well). It was crazy because it revealed how little Nighthawk cared about his teammates, how his teammates were nothing more than disposable pawns to him. (Granted, I don't think Sabertooth should have been taken down as easily as he was by Nighthawk, regardless of an explosive device being used like it was).

The Squadron Savage story was pretty good, too - especially how it was used to draw Kang the Conqueror into "this reality" where he could be killed. That was a good, solid story, overall, I felt. Having both Dr. Faustus and Kingpin controlling Elektra like they did was pretty unexpected for me. Well, not so much Dr. Faustus; Kingpin's control surprised me (when it really should not have).

I fully expected Mephisto to betray President Colson and was not disappointed or let down. What I did not expect was the "council of Mephistos" at the end of the series and the plan for all 616 of them to join forces and manipulate reality to suit their evil whims. seriously, this "council of this character" or "council of that character" is getting a bit old. Bad enough there was a "council of Reeds" in Fantastic Four followed by a "council of Dooms"; I am sure there are other such councils but it seems like a well that has run dry at this point. Still, though, that "plot line" at the end of the series is supposed to run through some of the titles in Marvel (I think mostly the Avengers titles now that the whole "Eternals vs. X-Men vs. Avengers War" is over.

The end of the series felt anticlimactic and was a bit of a disappointment for me. I don't know how to describe it; it just felt like a bit of a letdown. Not quite a giant letdown, but like maybe it was supposed to go one a bit longer but got cut back? Still though, despite the Avengers "winning" in the end and reality being restored, it felt like this series merely reinforced the "issues" the JLA (mainly Superman) had with the Avengers in the Jla Avengers crossover event - that the Avengers did not do enough to "make things right" in the world, that they did not work hard enough to improve the situations in the individual states of the U.S. as well as other countries around the world. The Squadron Supreme also levies this accusation against the Avengers, that they do not do enough to protect the world as well as to protect the downtrodden on the planet. So it is the JLA's accusation taken to an extreme, but I am not sure if it really proved a point. Perhaps it felt like a giant letdown because it was merely a "hook" for a "bigger" future storyline involving 616 Mephistos and their plan(s) to recreate reality into one that suited their whims? It really was a giant "What if?" story that took place over seven issues and had other "tie-in" issues as well to flesh out the story further and show that this Squadron Supreme wasn't always the "best" in terms of being heroes because of how they embraced "the ends justifies the means" and were willing to kill those who opposed them when the mood struck them. I am not sure what I expected when reading this compilation, but I did not expect to be as letdown as I was. In the end, I am glad I took a chance on reading it, but we will see if I ever read it again.

[J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main story is marginally ok. It has some interesting thoughts about which Marvel characters correspond with which DC characters, but it lacks any real sense of immediacy or danger; it doesn't seem to build on anything or lead anywhere. Or, if it does, it wasn't obvious to me.

But then there are hundreds of pages of one-shots which are almost uniformly dull. I think an interested reader should just read the regular miniseries of 7-or-so issues and definitely skip all the other stuff.

[Brannigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very long What if story. It’s entertaining ad fun but in the end it doesn’t matter or hold significants to any of the characters.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know this event has been widely panned, and I went in expecting not much besides the batshit explodo that’s defined Aaron’s Avengers run.

But I completely fell in love.

Forget Heroes Reborn, this is more like Amalgam 2.0. The DC/Marvel mashup of it all is a blast, and both the main series and the spin-off issues all have a sense of joy playing around in this mashup universe.

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blade wakes up in a new America, one without the Avengers instead they have the Squadron Supreme (using existing Marvel Characters to create a team that is scarily close the JLA and honestly... it's kinda awesome). It's up to Blade to find what's happened to the Avengers and "assemble" them. Can he and his new teammates bring the world back to reality?
So much fun...

[Mike Mumm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. the actual event was a bit too short at only 7 issues in my opinion, and most of the actual plot happens in the last 3 issues since the first 4 issues are used to develop the squadron supreme so it could've used more time to breath, but I really loved the tie-in chapters alongside the event and this Omnibus as a whole.