Potential spoilers for Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1 ahead!
Heroes Reborn’s most brutal team, the Squadron Savage, is unveiled in a special preview for Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1. Written by Ethan Sacks with art by Luca Pizzari, the issue will be on sale in print and on digital June 9.
Within the mainstream Marvel Universe, the Savage Avengers are a dark team of anti-heroes that tackle heavy missions the regular Avengers won’t touch. Their membership has included characters such as Elektra, the Punisher, Conan the Barbarian, and Deadpool. The central premise of Heroes Reborn is someone has altered reality so that the Avengers never existed. In their absence, the Squadron Supreme is Earth’s premiere superhero team. Just as there is no Avengers team in this new timeline, there is no Savage Avengers team as well, but this new world still has dirty missions the Squadron cannot be bothered with—enter the Squadron Savage!
In a special, unlettered sneak preview, readers see the Squadron Savage in action. The cover introduces the members: Elektra, Punisher, Cloak, Crossbones, and a new character called Murder Hornet. The first page shows Elektra and Cloak sneaking into a top-secret facility using Cloak’s teleportation powers; their target is a mysterious individual floating in a tank of chemicals. The next page shows the full team in action as Elektra and Murder Hornet attempt to hack into a computer, while Punisher whirls around, sensing something behind them. The preview ends there, and fans will have to wait a month to see the Squadron Savage again.
Since there was no dialogue provided, there is no context for the team’s actions, but it is clear from the preview pages this team will be every bit as formidable as the Savage Avengers. Elektra and the Punisher, two Savage Avengers stalwarts, mix well with new recruits Crossbones and Cloak, whose teleportation powers serve the team particularly well. And while very little information has been revealed about new recruit Murder Hornet, they seem a perfect fit for the team. Beyond the obvious questions of what the team’s objective is, how much oversight does this team work with? The Squadron Supreme has been quite brutal in fighting their opponents in the past—will the Squadron Savage take it up a notch? Or, counterintuitively, might they prove a less violent counterpoint to the Squadron Supreme?
Heroes Reborn has given readers a fascinating glimpse of a Marvel Universe turned up on its ear, showing readers a world without the Avengers, Spider-Man, or the X-Men. Yet there are still heroes in this world, and there are still missions too dark for those heroes to handle, so they turn to the Squadron Savage, and readers see them in action for the first time in Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage.
