So here's the deal: California's LA-based Initiative team is composed of regular humans juiced up into superheroes with really boring names and powers. And a Greek pantheon-based sorting system that doesn't work at all, just like Ares once his royalty checks start rolling in. There's no genuine reason why arbitrarily designating team roles as Hera, Apollo, or Athena works any better than Strategist, Tank, or dozens of other words that are completely free to use (until Stark applies for trademark registration), but you'll have to sit through the official explanation whether you like it or not.
Anyway, this issue won't set the stars ablaze but there's enough here to show promise, especially if you're not wedded to the idea of four-color superheroes. (Speaking of color, the cast includes not one, but two physically handicapped minorities--c'mon, would it be so hard to let at least one of 'em keep a pair of functioning legs?) Our characters are adults who recognize, to varying degrees, that it's all basically a set-up. So do you join up to save the world? Or so you can use your new powers to skip traffic on the freeway? Sure, it's a little cynical, but hel-lo, LA.
Barry Kitson's art is solid, which also helps. Incidentally, I suppose it's too much to ask that action star/charity diva Magdalena turns out to have an international passel of adopted orphans or a Kabbalah bracelet, is it? No? Oh well.
The deal-clincher, though, is that everyone gets fired in the first issue. Okay, not everyone. But a bunch of people are unceremoniously handed the pink slip, and it is awesome. This is something the Marvel Universe could frankly use a lot more of, as its employment standards are pretty laughable:
X-MEN: So, A-List Villain, you've been killing people off and on--mostly on--for the past ten years or so without remorse or regret?
VILLAIN: Yup.
X-MEN: Even tried to kill us a number of times, I see.
VILLAIN: Uh-huh. In fact, I'm thinking about poking your eyes out right now.
X-MEN: Welcome to the team!
Also, there's a bear with a jetpack. I'm not one for bears with jetpacks, as a rule, but if you have to have bears with jetpacks, LA is as appropriate a place as any to send 'em. So--go bears!
