When Doctor Doom takes over the world, he enlists his own version of the Avengers to carry out the will of Doom. One World Under Doom is sweeping across the Marvel Universe, with several tie-in stories and brand new comics launching to reveal how Marvel’s heroes and villains are reacting to Doctor Doom’s power play. One of the new series debuting during One World Under Doom is Superior Avengers by writer Steve Foxe and artists Luca Maresca and Kyle Hotz. As the name indicates, Superior Avengers is a team of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who serve Doctor Doom. While the roster contains some recognizable names, the characters calling themselves heroes may not be as they seem.
ComicBook spoke to Steve Foxe about Superior Avengers to find out how the series ties into One World Under Doom. We also learn how Doctor Doom’s adopted son Kristoff Vernard factors into the Superior Avengers coming together, what Doctor Doom thinks of the team, how the Superior Avengers stack up to previous villains-in-disguise teams like the Thunderbolts and Dark Avengers, picking which villains are on the Superior Avengers, and much more. We also have an exclusive first look at interior pages for Superior Avengers #1 by Luca Maresca.
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ComicBook: Superior Avengers is one of the more interesting projects to launch out of One World Under Doom. What’s led Doom to decide that he needs his own personal Avengers team, especially with the decision to name them after Earth’s Mightiest Heroes instead of something Doom-related?
Steve Foxe: Well, as readers will see in the first issue, this is actually a project Kristoff Vernard originated, not Doom himself. I think Doom probably feels that Doom can handle all things on his own—that’s pretty much the Doom way. I mean, the guy built a fleet of robots in his own image. He’s not great at delegating to others.
But readers of One World Under Doom #1 already know that Doom has taken advantage of opportunities to make Earth’s Mightiest Heroes look a bit…less than competent in the eyes of the world. So the prospect of having his own team of Avengers—a superior team, one that addresses the world’s ills with Doom’s own methodology—is an attractive enough notion. It’s one more opportunity to demonstrate the shortcomings of his rivals. If Kristoff executes the program to his adoptive father’s high expectations, that is.
How does Doctor Doom’s son, Kristoff Vernard, feel about being tasked with assembling the Superior Avengers? And what’s it been like to help Kristoff find a new role in the Marvel Universe and in One World Under Doom?
Kristoff proposed the project in the first place, but it comes with no shortage of pressure. Anything done in his father’s name carries the weight of Doom’s gaze. And while Doom has been a stern but relatively supportive father figure for Kristoff in the past, he’s also not a man you want to disappoint. Kristoff is aiming high—which means he has a long way to fall if he misses.
Kristoff has been a rich character to dig into, as he’s got a long history in the Marvel Universe, but tends to float around the margins when writers aren’t taking an active interest in him. His father’s shadow looms SO large, he can get lost in it. But that in and of itself makes for a compelling storyline, and there was no way we could let One World Under Doom pass without exploring what this massive status quo shift would mean for one of the very, very few people close to Victor von Doom.
Superior Avengers follows in the footsteps of teams like the Thunderbolts and Dark Avengers, which had villains pretending to be heroes. What sets the Superior Avengers apart from these other teams?
Well, we knew we couldn’t do the “X pretends to be Y” thing a third time. There’s a saying about fooling someone multiple times and all. So while you’re absolutely right that Superior Avengers follows in the tradition of books like Dark Avengers, it’s built less on a smoke-and-mirrors premise. The characters we’re introducing on the cover—the killer designs by Luca Maresca—are who they appear to be. What motivates them and what they’re doing here—or what they’re running away from—is where things may get more complicated.
The unique challenge with the Superior Avengers compared to those past teams is that they never had a Sorcerer Supreme looking over their shoulders. The Thunderbolts were, in most incarnations, united behind common missions. The Dark Avengers openly didn’t trust each other. But as far as Kristoff is concerned, the Superior Avengers fight for his father’s cause. How far that loyalty goes will determine the course of the series—and Kristoff’s fate. And you can only keep the truth from a Sorcerer Supreme for so long…
What were the conversations like when it came to deciding which villains would make up the Superior Avengers roster? Were they already picked when you got the assignment, or did you get a say as to who they’d be?
Almost nothing about this book—including the name—was set in stone when editor Wil Moss first reached out about doing some version of a “Doom’s Avengers” project for OWUD. The book headed toward shelves evolved over a number of conversations and brainstorming sessions as we worked out a way to make it as unique, exciting, and additive as possible.
As for deciding the roster, one of the first characters I landed on was a new female Killmonger, who I thought had a lot of potential to introduce a new dynamic to that legacy—and maybe even go toe to toe with a certain princess.
My hope was to subvert expectations with some of these names, and to surprise readers with what they actually get when they hear “Abomination” or “Onslaught.” I don’t want to spoil too much about any of them, but exploring their unique voices has been a huge chunk of the fun on the book, especially since Luca knocked all of their designs out of the park, pretty much on the first try.
To wrap up, what are you most excited for fans to see and experience when they pick up issues of Superior Avengers?
More than anything, I can’t wait for readers to see the work Luca’s put into the pages. My approach to the book draws a lot from the widescreen superhero action of the early 2000s, and Luca REALLY picked up what I was putting down. This book’s got, by far, some of the most large-scale and bone-breaking action I’ve scripted at Marvel. And we even threw in some steamy romance to balance it all out.
We’re also lucky enough to be joined by the legendary Kyle Hotz. Kyle brings such a different flavor to the book than Luca, and it’s been a lot of fun, as a writer, to lean into that contrast with the storytelling.
This is NOT a nice book or a nice team, but it looks BEYOND nice thanks to these guys and the colorists and letterers backing them up. We’re going to show you a good time with some bad people.
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