Next Page
#1
#2
Selector

Avengers Solo (2011 series) #1

Dec 2011
on-sale: Oct 26, 2011
Jen Van Meter | Roger Robinson

Avengers Solo (2011 series) #1 cover

Story Name:

Pathfinder (part 1)

Synopsis

Avengers Solo (2011 series) #1 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
The story in this issue is split into 2 parts. The 1st half is technically a flashback because it has a voiceover of Hawkeye telling Captain America what happened.

Hawkeye spots an armoured char chasing a man he calls Tuli in a suit down an alley, who brings him down with an energy projection. The man wants to know what's happened to a certain female. The armoured person tells him she doesn't want to be found and she doesn't want Tuli to get hurt. Clint Barton interrupts and fires a net arrow at the 1 in armour but it splatters against an energy field. There's a blinding flash and the foe is gone. But Tuli doesn't want Hawkeye's help and runs off.

Our hero returns to Avengers Mansion but can't find the armour in their database. But then Edwin Jarvis tells him that Tulio Guzman has come to see him. He says he's decided he does need the Avenger's help to find his sister Marcia who disappeared 6 months ago. The person chasing him is called Trace and they think they're doing the right thing but they're wrong. Tuli has conferred with a friend of his sister and they've agreed that only Hawkeye should be involved. He gives Barton a disc with lots of info on it but he starts to tell the story anyway, which began when Marcia was studying Law at Great Northern University. However Iron Man calls Hawkeye away to help deal with a volcano full of Lava Men in Texas, so Guzman asks him to meet them that night in Sherman Hotel, Room 719.

But when he gets there he finds Guzman dead and a note pinned with 1 of his arrows saying "Avenge This". He calls the police who are unusually cooperative. The lead detective welcomes his involvement since superpowers are involved, as long as he doesn't mess with the crime scene, but he wants a copy of Guzman's disc.

Hawkeye flies off on his higher-tech sky-cycle but is attacked by an armoured guy he *does* recognise, Chance, who we hear telling his employer that he's assassinated Guzman but then accepts the job of taking down Hawkeye too. He knocks the Avengers off his cycle onto a flat rooftop. Barton knows that Chance doesn't get paid as such, but wagers that he'll get paid his fee if he succeeds but pay the equivalent amount himself if he loses. And now Chance says he's gone double or quits on Hawkeye. Clint offers his own wager, if Chance loses he tells him who his employer is. Chance accepts and Hawkeye's arrow takes out 1 of his boot jets, but his laser cuts the archer's bow in half. Barton falls back onto his cycle but Chance shoots at him again ...

... however he finds himself protected by an energy field because Trace is back. They argue while Chance tries to escape. Trace wants Hawkeye to back out but Barton guesses that Trace left the note next to the body so he's in. But then their foe attacks again, but Hawkeye stabs him with an arrow that shorts out his armour. However Chance refuses to give up his employer, using the phrase "silence is golden". Clint hands him over to the police.

Then he meets up with Cap at the Mansion and tells him the story. They look at Tulio's disc which tells them about a Great Northern U researcher Dr Seth Forest who died in an arson fire. A patient named Nita Young is a suspect, who was 1 of many harmed by a vitamin study she took part in. Steve Rogers offers to help but Clint says Guzman was adamant that no other Avengers should be involved, so Cap leaves him to it. There's a list of people involved in the study who all now seem inaccessible in 1 way or another. but 1 address stands out as anomalous - the Hanover Modelling Agency ...

... where Clint Barton meets its boss Millie Collins and her associate Toni Turner. They profess not to know Maria Guzman but when he tells them that her brother Tulio hired him to find her and now he's dead Toni persuades Millie that they should help. Toni gives him her private line and tells him to ring her in an hour. When he does she tells him to meet someone alone on a certain ferry - they'll know what he looks like.

There he meets up with a nervous female. She says that Tuli told her he'd given everything to the Avenger Hawkeye, and Clint says he thought it unadvisable to come in that id. She introduces herself as Marcia's friend Melanie. Over coffee he outlines what he knows about the situation. Dr Forrest ran a large study on prenatal nutrition for 5 years but last year he started paying participants. Some subjects became ill and at least 7 died and the study was shut down. Now everyone involved has disappeared and Forrest died in a fire blamed on missing subject Nita Young. And he guesses Marcia and Melanie were subjects in the study and they feel threatened enough to hide even from their families.

Mel, a middle-school math teacher, explains that Marcia was working on a lawsuit for the sufferers. But then Nita got framed for Forrest's death and things started happening to the subjects so they went into hiding. The armoured Trace is a friend who's helping them because the enemy have ray-guns and stuff. She gives him an address for him to meet them at 10:00 tonight, if she can persuade the others he can be trusted.

Hawkeye approaches the building by firing a grappling hook arrow and sliding down the line to its rooftop. He looks around to check that all's clear but gets stuck to a wall by paste from the gun of the Trapster.


Characters
Good (or All)
CAP
HAWKEYE
IRONMAN
JARVIS
Plus: Millie the Model (Millie Collins).

Enemies
Chance, Trapster.

Story #2

Moving daze

Writer: Jim McCann. Penciler/Inker: Clayton Henry. Colorist: Chris Sotomayor. Letterer: Dave Sharpe.

Synopsis

By Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
The Avengers Academy's base, the Infinite Avengers Mansion in Underspace, got destroyed during Fear Itself. Now they're moving into the old West Coast Avengers Compound in Los Angeles, but it needs renovation. We see students Hazmat and Reptil working on that and Avengers Ms Marvel and Wolverine helping (and presumably there are a lot more people involved). Teacher Tigra and headmaster Henry Pym were both in the old WCA and had a relationship there which they have recently rekindled (AvAc#13). Now they're feeling weird about being back. She's watching him fix something in the monitoring station/control room and she comments that he's wearing the multi-pocketed jumpsuit that he used to wear then in his deliberately non-superhero Dr Pym id. He's got the system all working and tests it out ...

... by calling students Finesse and Striker to come there. Finesse figures they want her help with the system but she can't figure out why they'd need Striker too. But it turns out that Pym wants to take them on a field trip to see Dr Myron MacLain, inventor of Adamantium (except Wolverine had it in his skeleton long before) in Pym's old research lab in Death Valley where Ultron forced the 2 scientists to create his 'bride' Alkhema (WCA#90). The system has registered an alarm from there.

So Pym dons his Giant-Man uniform to fly him and the 2 students there in a Quinjet. Tigra relays info to them that there's been a lot of activity and comms there recently, and blueprints show a much-enlarged underground structure. A geothermal scan shows 6 guards outside but the interior is shielded. Pym reminds the students they're not here for a fight. But when they arrive something interferes with the Quinjet's system and they crash.


Characters
Good (or All)
FINESSE
GIANTMANHP
HAZMAT
MSMARVEL
REPTIL
STRIKER
TIGRA
WOLVERINE




> Avengers Solo (2011 series) comic book info and issue index


Avengers Solo (2011 series) #1 cover

::: click cover to ENLARGE it :::

Excelsioring your collection:
statue
Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

Main/1st Story Full Credits

Roger Robinson
Roger Robinson
Fabio d'Auria
John Tyler Christopher (Cover Penciler)
John Tyler Christopher (Cover Inker)
John Tyler Christopher (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Thomas Brennan. Editor-in-chief: Axel Alonso.



Review / Commentaries

Avengers Solo (2011 series) #1 Review by (April 26, 2025)
Thor's on the cover along with Captain America and Iron Man. But not only does he not appear in this issue, he's not anywhere in the whole mini-series. In fact he's probably still dead after Fear Itself and been replaced by Tanarus.

This series is a split book like Solo Avengers/Avengers Spotlight before it. Like that series it also mainly features Hawkeye. But unlike that series the 2nd story is relegated to to a short backup, which in this case is a continuing tale of the Avengers Academy.

In global terms both of the serials in this series are set after the Fear Itself event.

Story 1:

Hawkeye, Captain America, Iron Man and Edwin Jarvis were all involved in Avengers (2010) #18 in the choosing of the new team. All 3 heroes were seen in the FI: The Fearless limited series. Hawkeye and Cap appeared in the Battlescars miniseries. And now they're all here.

It is probable that the wearer of the Trace armour here isn't always the same person. The Marvel Chronology Project suggests that it's Emi Ishida when Hawkeye sees Trace with Tulio Guzman but Marcia Guzman herself during the fight with Chance.

Chance mainly inhabits Spider-Man titles. He started out working for Foreigner in Web Of SM #15 and he was last seen in Marvel Knights SM #6. He'll be back in #3.

This is a rather gratuitous app of Millie Collins and Toni Turner because they have nothing more to do with the story.
They both started out in Millie The Model comics. It would be difficult to correlate Millie's 1940's Timely apps with the current char. Even Toni who 1st showed up in the 50's would be a problem.
Millie's app at Reed and Sue's wedding in Fantastic Four Annual #3 is subject to the Marvel Sliding Timescale so that and later apps can be reconciled with this. They were both last seen in their Models, Inc mini-series.
Toni will next appear in Millie's tale in FI: Fearless #1. Before that Millie will be among a large group in the main story in Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration 1-shot and then in Unstoppable Wasp #7.

Trapster started off as a recurring villain (Paste-Pot Pete) for the Human Torch in Strange Tales and was then a founder member of the Frightful Four, foes of the Fantastic Four. He's continued to be a regular FF foe but has also diversified, especially into Spider-Man issues. He was last in She-Hulks #1 with his HT&FF partner Wizard.


Story 2:

For the Academy chars this follows on from their Fear Itself epilogue Avengers Academy #20.

For Ms Marvel and Wolverine it similarly follows from Avengers (2010) #18, and they both appear next in the FI: Fearless limited series.

Myron MacLain doesn't actually appear in this series. He was introduced in Avengers #66 as the inventor of Adamantium (which Ultron then incorporated into his body). But a retcon in Wolverine -1 revealed that he'd studied the Adamantium in Logan's skeleton and then worked out how to reproduce it. Logan had Adamantium bonded to his skeleton by the Weapon X Project (in Marvel Comics Presents #73-84) though who knows where they got it from. And some other chars also had Adamantium early on too.
MacLain has also been retconned (Captain America #302-303) as creating a Vibranium/steel alloy for Cap's shield in WWII. His last Marvel Age app was West Coast Avengers #89-91, the birth of Alkhema mentioned in the story. Though the Marvel Sliding Timescale for Marvel Age stories makes his active scientific life from WWII to then rather amazing. He's presumably dead now, but Dr Pym seems to think he's alive and still working.

Doctor Doom Faces off Against a Powerful Alliance of Marvel’s Most Vicious Villains
From Our Blog:
Before *Avengers: Doomsday* and *Avengers: Secret Wars*, where the Avengers fight Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, Marvel’s One World Under Doom will unite Earth’s Mightiest Heroes with some villains.
Marvel Settles the Debate: Which Cosmic Titan Reigns Supreme in a Battle of Epic Proportions?
From Our Blog:
A Battle Between Galactus and Khonshu Shows Who is Undeniably the Mightiest of These TwoThe Marvel Universe boasts hundreds of immensely powerful characters, including cosmic entities and deities who rank highest in the power hierarchy.

Thor

The Marvel Heroes Library is a fan Marvel Comics site
Version 14.8.61 (Mar 14, 2025 - VS22)

Copyright © 1997-2025 Julio Molina-Muscara (creator, webmaster)
Site content is a collective effort by the MHL team and Marvel aficionados

Characters are copyright © Marvel or their respective owners. All portions of this Marvel fansite that are subject to copyright are licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 unported license All rights reserved