Thanks to those of you who have written nice letters after seeing the latest Marvel solicits with the latest Adventures book, THE AVENGERS. We're starting with Manuel Garcia pencilling, and me (Jeff Parker, searcher enginers) writing, and Aaron Lopresti providing covers. Excellent art all the way around! Since the Adventures books are supposed to introduce new readers to the Marvel Heroes, the line up generally reflects the characters people might know from the movies, plus the two you have to have or it's not the Avengers, Iron Man and Captain America. Originally Giant-Man was offered to me with the line-up, but I really wanted more female characters and pleaded until Janet Van Dyne was allowed to take the big role, in case you're wondering who Giant-Girl is.

Lookin' round the interweb, I see some people are still confusing Marvel Adventures with the MARVEL AGE books that have been gone for a while. The stories we do in Adventures are not retellings, they're new. Sometimes we introduce established characters as if new, because we just can't expect possible new readers to go back and absorb 40 years of continuity to figure out what's going on. So my focus is to present the characters as true to classic form as possible, because how things happen is more important than the facts of what happens. And they're not aimed at kids, though we really want kids reading them. And going by the great numbers the books do in retail stores outside the direct market, they are-- or someone is! If you want to get a sense of what the Avengers book will be like, pick up some of the latest Adventures Fantastic Four books by me and Manuel, that should get the tone across. Thanks again for all of you who've wrote looking forward to the book-- so am I!