Avengers Academy (2010-2012)

During the MCU era, Marvel downplayed the X-Men, for whom they didn't have film rights. So a new team of super-kids was released under the aegis of the Avengers instead, with an interesting conceptual hook: The Avengers Academy students were "at risk youth" in danger of becoming supervillains.

I have all the blueline inks from issue #3, "Scared Straight Part One, in which the kids first receive superhero lessons and then tour a prison to see why they don't want to end up there. Plus backstory on Hazmat, whose "cursed powers" of toxicity have made her the most enduring character from the group. The whole issue was penciled by Mike McKone on separate pages; Andrew Hennessy inked blue-line print-outs. I find McKone's storytelling (with writer Christos Gage) excellent, even without the dialogue.

The pages were interspersed with advertisements in the published comic book, so it didn't always appear as the double page spreads I'm showing here. I subsequently got one inked blueline page from the following issue, so I have included it here as well.

Also here are scattered pages I was able to get from issues 14 through 22, including the oddly numbered #14.1, which was designed as an entry issue for new readers. Sean Chen turned in excellent work on this overlooked series, from which the "cursed hero" Hazmat turned out to be the breakout star character.