New Avengers #1

History

Hickman moved directly from his critically praised Fantastic Four run to assume stewardship of Marvel's entire Avengers line as part of the 2012–2013 Marvel NOW! publishing initiative, writing both Avengers and New Avengers simultaneously as two interlocking but tonally distinct narratives. The series was edited by Tom Brevoort and Lauren Sankovitch, and Brevoort has publicly stated that the title was deliberately kept as 'New Avengers' rather than renamed 'Illuminati' as a deliberate marketing decision, reasoning that the established brand would give the book a stronger commercial footing. The opening story arc's title, 'Memento Mori' (a Latin phrase meaning 'remember that you must die'), and the character of the Black Swan were both consciously rooted in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan theory — the philosophical framework describing rare, catastrophic, and retrospectively rationalized events — giving Hickman's superhero narrative an unusual grounding in real-world risk philosophy.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Written by Jonathan Hickman, pencilled by Steve Epting, with cover art by Jock; edited by Tom Brevoort and Lauren Sankovitch under editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.
• Published January 2, 2013 (cover-dated March 2013) as part of Marvel's Marvel NOW! initiative, launching the third volume of New Avengers; ran for 33 issues through April 2015.
• First appearance of Black Swan (Yabbat Ummon Tarru of Earth-1365), a survivor of a destroyed alternate Earth who had been raised by a multiversal religious order; she is created by Hickman and Epting.
• First in-continuity introduction of 'Incursions' as a defined Marvel concept: a multiversal phenomenon in which two alternate universes collide at their respective Earths, giving inhabitants roughly eight hours to destroy one world or lose both universes entirely.
• The Illuminati roster assembled across this issue and early arc includes Black Panther, Iron Man, Reed Richards, Captain America, Black Bolt, Namor, Doctor Strange, and the Beast (filling the vacancy left by the deceased Professor X).
• Despite carrying the 'New Avengers' title, the series focuses entirely on the Illuminati rather than a traditional Avengers team — a branding choice Tom Brevoort confirmed was made for commercial rather than narrative reasons.
• The title of the debut story arc, 'Memento Mori,' and the Black Swan character concept are both explicitly rooted in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan theory of rare, high-impact, unpredictable events.
• The series served as the narrative backbone of the road to Secret Wars (2015) and has been collected in multiple formats: the original Everything Dies trade paperback (issues #1–6), a Jonathan Hickman hardcover omnibus collecting #1–12, and multi-volume Complete Collection trade paperbacks integrating both Avengers titles.

Full credits

Key issues in New Avengers

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#8 1st appearance — Ebony Maw

Variants (7)