After being introduced in ‘Age of Ultron,‘ long-time ‘Spawn’ character Angela made quite an impact on the Marvel Universe. The Angel of Heven spent some time traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy, but then in ‘Original Sin,’ we all learned that she is actually a lost daughter of Asgard. Since then, she’s been starring in ‘Angela: Asgard’s Assassin’ from Kieron Gillen and Marguerite Bennett. However, now that ‘Secret Wars’ is upon us, Angela and Sera are taking their adventures elsewhere. In fact, they’re headed to another time period entirely.
Newsarama tells us that Angela will star in ‘1602: Witch Hunter Angela,’ a brand new ‘Secret Wars’ tie-in written by Gillen and Bennett with main story art by Stephanie Hans and stand alone story art by a guest artist. The world of ‘Marvel 1602’ was created by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert, so it’s fitting that another Gaiman creation make her way into the acclaimed series set in the early days of colonial America. But where does this new tale pick up in the timeline of Sir Nicholas Fury, Rojhaz, Count Otto von Doom, and the rest of these alternate Marvel characters? Bennett fills us in:
“Queen Elizabeth has been recently murdered, King James has ascended the throne, and throughout the entire country there’s a persecution of those who are considered witchbreed, which is the 1602 equivalent of mutants. We’re combining this history and this flourishing time of Western literature with the mythology of the Marvel universe.”
Part of the charm of the award-winning limited series was seeing the new versions of characters that we’ve come to know and love. Considering Angela’s newly discovered Asgardian heritage, one might think that Thor, Odin, or others from that realm may make their 1602 debut alongside the titular character. Though she doesn’t spill the beans on that department, Bennett does reveal some of the players we’ll be seeing during Angela and Sera’s “wandering, holy mission”:
“Asgardians I can’t confirm, but we will definitely see a lot of familiar 1602 characters. We want to make the series our own; I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman and the original run, but we really didn’t want to just retread something that was already very beloved, we wanted to go out and explore the furthest corners of that universe. So you’re going to see people who never appeared in the original series. We’ve got a 1602 Bucky Barnes, and we’ve got 1602 Guardians of the Galaxy, which has never been done before! So yeah, we’re very excited to have fun with it and tear off full speed ahead.”
When I spoke to Bennett at last year’s Baltimore Comic Con, we talked about how much of a Neil Gaiman fan she is, so I’m glad to see that she gets to work with more things that he created. Plus, ‘Angela: Asgard’s Assassin’ has been a great book with a really interesting story and amazing artwork, so it’s cool to see the creative team mostly stay together for ‘Secret Wars’ and give us more. But while we wait for that, check out some covers and sketches in the gallery below:
What do you think about ‘1602: Witch Hunter Angela’? Will you be picking it up later this year with any other ‘Secret Wars’ titles? Let us know in the comments below.
