Since the 1960s, the supergroup known as The Avengers has always been "Earth's Mightiest Heroes." While it's gone through a number of incarnations over the last 60 years, the latest change Marvel has announced for the Avengers is going to be one of the most unique.
Starting in May, a Secret Wars tie-in entitled A-Force will debut, which finds a brand-new group of Avengers will be made up entirely of women. The group, which features card-carrying Avenger She-Hulk alongside announced members Medusa (who is an Inhuman queen), X-Men member Dazzler, and Nico Minoru (who got a huge boost in the well-received Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover series, which followed a group of teens that were trapped in a mysterious place called Murderworld, and the aftermath). Marvel says there will be other characters popping in, and judging by the image that was sent out, many of the fiercest women to hit the Marvel Universe (from Captain Marvel to the Black Widdow) will play some part in this new group. G. Willow Wilson (who is writing the series alongside Marguerite K. Bennett) says that they "assembled a team composed of different characters from disparate parts of the Marvel U, with very different power sets, identities and ideologies.”
The Avengers has always had women on its side (The Wasp is one of the founding members), but the group has always been chock full of—and led by—men. It's also good to note that while this change will be new for the Avengers, this is not necessarily new ground for Marvel; in 2013, Marvel presented an all-women X-Men series, featuring Storm, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, and others.
Marvel has given no further details regarding this new team of Avengers, but with A-Force being tied into Secret Wars, there's no telling what shape the Avengers—and the Marvel Universe as a whole—will be in.
