Synopsis
Norman Osborn's Dark Reign is over, ended in the Siege event. The old Avengers titles have all ended and new titles have started in the Heroic Age. In particular the Initiative superpower training camp, corrupted by Osborn, has now been replaced by the Avengers Academy.
3 months ago in Harry S Truman High School Maddy Berry has been getting texts all week from Brad, the most popular and successful guy in school, saying he fancies her and inviting her to go to Homecoming with him. She plucks up the courage to accept in person but it turns out he doesn't even know who she is. It further transpires the messages were a hoax sent by his girlfriend Julianne Navarro to embarrass her. She's duly mortified and wishes she could just disappear. Which she does as she turns into grey smoke which exits her clothes.
That evening at home she's explaining to someone what happened next. The other pupils all ran away screaming, which was lucky for her because her body reassembled a minute or so later naked. (And she presumably got dressed before anyone found her.) She's talking to Osborn who claims to be impressed that that on her very 1st power manifestation she transformed completely to gas and back, and he offers to make her a superheroine like her idol Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers). She says she's tried to do it again but can't. He tells her to trust him.
Now Henry Pym is scanning her in his lab. She tells him that Osborn did succeed in getting her to transform at will and control what gas she changed into, but she doesn't want to talk about how he did it. We see him watching as Baron von Blitzschlag (presumably in his lab at the Initiative's Camp Hammond/HAMMER) injects her with something while she's restrained with a brace inside her mouth to bite down on. Hank says he can guess what Osborn put her through. She thinks she was naive to trust Osborn, but he reminds her that the US Government was fooled too and made him Director Of National Security. He apologises to her that it took the combined Avengers so long to expose him and bring him down.
But now he enquires if she's feeling any after-effects of the treatment. She says she's never felt better and she doesn't even need glasses anymore. Dr Pym says that the manifestation of a superpower usually includes improvements in the whole body. But she guesses from his question that he's *expecting* after-effects. He suggests he gets Tigra to talk to her but Maddy says she wants the truth now. He explains that the forced growth of her superabilities means that her body is very slowly losing cohesion and after years or maybe decades she'll fade away permanently. But he promises her that they'll find a way to stop it before then. Now we see that Tigra and Justice *are* present as Maddy runs out of the lab.
Justice follows her through the Infinite Avengers Mansion to its atrium displaying images of previous Avengers teams. Vance Astrovik says he can't know what she's feeling now but he tells her about Firestar (who superhero fan Maddy knows used to be his fiancee). She too was being harmed by her powers and Hank Pym saved her. He urges her to live her life to the full *however* long she's got. And takes her (and us) to meet someone else.
They watch through a window into Pym's lab as Tigra encases a girl in a containment suit. Justice explains that's Jennifer Takeda with the codename Hazmat. She can emit deadly stuff like radiation and toxic waste. Osborn treated Jenny like he did her, and her dog died and her parents and boyfriend are sick. Hank has discovered that her breath, sweat and saliva are all mildly poisonous but the exposure quickly builds up, so she's going to have to wear the containment suit whenever she's not alone. We see Hank carefully wipe up a tear she shed as Tigra leads her out. Vance suggests Maddy share experiences with her, but when she tries to introduce herself Hazmat brushes her off and leaves. Justice tells Maddy that out of all the teens Osborn abused the ones here at the Academy were chosen because they're the best. But she's more concerned about being cured, and Vance reluctantly promises it will happen. He's rewarded with a hug.
Next day we see that she's been given a costume consisting of black strips wound round her body like a mummy. When she enters a training room she screams when she sees a flying youth shooting fire from a gun at a lumbering red figure on the ground. The male 'victim' expresses admiration for her costume and she instinctively turns into a white gas and her costume unravels. The flyer thinks they're under attack but the big red guy with the skeletal head (and all-metal body) reminds him that he's used to the effect seeing him for the 1st time has. Maddy reforms her body and her costume reforms too. She apologises to the big guy Mettle and nervously babbles about being glad her costume works. The other guy introduces himself as Reptil/Humberto Lopez with his power to give his body bits of dinosaurs. He comments that Mr Fantastic made all their costumes out of Unstable Molecules, and his adjusts to whatever dino aspect he takes on like the wings earlier. And he's campaigning to be made team leader. The big red man adds that Reptil has already had Initiative training (not the Osborn type). He introduces himself as Ken Mack, and Maddy belatedly tells them her name too, and superid Veil - and that she *doesn't* want to be team leader.
Ken wonders who they'll be fighting in the training room, and a male voice tells them it might be the New Warriors. Hazmat and 2 others have entered the room. Reptil introduces them to Veil as female Finesse and male Striker, and Hazmat says she's already met her. Striker compliments Veil on her costume more fulsomely then Mettle did, and Finesse analytically comments that his alpha male 'courtship display' is covering up his insecurity. Striker responds that her cold and annoying manner won't win her many friends. Meanwhile she throws a battle stave to bounce off several things and hit Mettle on the head before returning to her hand, and then she comments that her talents and physical attractiveness get her 'adequate' attention, but whether they're friends she neither knows nor cares. And she goes off to master another fighting style. Striker compares her to Rain Man and a ninja assassin but Mettle thinks more along the lines of a hot librarian/gymnast. Hazmat callously points out to Ken that he couldn't feel anything if Finesse touched him, causing him to say that Dr Pym's going to cure him. Hazmat says he told *her* that too but she's not holding her breath.
Veil brings the subject to who they'll be training with. If it's a New Warrior she hopes it's Justice. Striker asks if she's like the other girls with a crush on him. Maddy blushes but he thinks there's more than 1 New Warrior on staff. And sure enough Speedball pops up and nearly introduces himself as Penance before telling them that both he and Justice will be running this session. So he gathers them all together, including Finesse, and leads them to the atrium. Striker reminds them that SB killed half of Stamford. Finesse points out that it was a villain he was fighting that did it. And Mettle thinks that makes him the best teacher. With their powers any of them could accidentally kill someone.
Hank Pym has swapped his lab coat for his Wasp costume and gives them a pep talk in front of a statue of the founding Avengers (as usual with Captain America, not the Hulk). He of course was 1 of them, and he reminds them how the heroes fought amongst themselves (Civil War and after) and let Norman Osborn seize control (in Dark Reign after Secret Invasion). But now they're entering a new (what Marvel banners as) Heroic Age. Osborn took advantage of lots of teen superhumans, and these 6 are the elite of them who the Academy exists to make heroes of tomorrow. The training staff will be Justice, Quicksilver, Speedball and Tigra. Tigra's stints in the police, Avengers and West Coast Av plus being a pre-Osborn Initiative trainer will enable her to teach them about law enforcement. Justice and Speedball were founders of the teen New Warriors and they can share the experience of their triumphs and mistakes. Quicksilver resisted the influence of the villain Magneto and became an Avenger and trained under Captain America, so he can help them on their post-Osborn journey.
The training session has the 6 vs Justice, Speedball and some robots. Justice commends Veil's teamwork, possibly only because the other 5 are definitely fighting solo. 1 of Striker's electric zaps hits Mettle as well as a robot. Vance Astrovik warns them to always know where their teammates are as Veil's wrappings (and gas?) obscure Mettle's vision. Striker says Osborn had him fighting much worse than this and he reckons he's ready for active hero work, and the celebrity that goes with it. He blasts Speedball with electricity but Robbie Baldwin absorbs it and sends it back as force beams.
Outside the room looking in Pym and Tigra discuss Robbie. He wants them to call him Speedball rather than Penance but Hank keeps forgetting (as it seems does Robbie himself). He opines that it's because he doesn't *act* like Speedball (as SB zaps Striker). He wonders if it's safe for him to be teaching kids. Greer Nelson responds that the teachers have all got problematic pasts. They agree that Justice killing his abusive father was self-defence and he served his time in jail for it, so Tigra thinks he should give Robbie a chance. She adds that Quicksilver has swapped between hero and villain several times, and Pietro Maximoff who's just zoomed in agrees. He says Magneto taught him to be a terrorist and he's only agreed to be here because Maggy is active again and he wants disassociate himself from him. But he thinks Cap or Thor would have been a better choice than any of them, especially Henry. Then he can't resist a dig at Tigra for bringing the subject of their pasts up. But Hank says it's right that he be reminded of his nervous breakdown and how he struck his wife (the original Wasp) and attacked his fellow Avengers. They've forgiven him and moved on, and he intends to move on by remembering his faults and learning from them. And so he finally agrees that Speedball deserves the same chance. But Pietro moves on to say that they shouldn't be lying to the students. Hank counters that telling them might make it a self-fulfilling prophecy so he intends to continue keeping the truth from them. And Cap and Thor and others will be guest instructors.
In the training room Speedball turns a dial which increases the level of difficulty (of the robots). 1 of them hits Hazmat so she removes a glove and fires a radiation blast at it. Speedball in turn hits *her* with a barrage of force balls and berates her for going too far. She protests that it's her only power but he insists that she must learn how to use it non-lethally, or she could kill innocents while trying to take down a baddie. He asks her if she wants to have nightmares of screams and burnt flesh. Justice calms him down and tells him to take a break. He exits to join the 3 in the observation booth. Pietro asks Robbie if *he* thinks it's OK to lie to the cadets. SB angrily insists that they must never learn the truth about themselves. And in the continuing training session we see Finesse watching the argument through the observation window.
That night she tells the others that she can read lips (her power is to learn skills superfast) and she saw them talking about a big secret that the trainees mustn't know. Striker suggests they hack into the computer system and find their personal files, tonight when only Dr Pym will be around working in his lab. Reptil objects that there'll be up-to-date security measures with advanced computer programming and counter-espionage to get round. Finesse of course says she knows that stuff. So she along with Striker (to short-circuit stuff) and Veil (whose gas form can hide them and get under locked doors) do the job. Maddy agreed because her experiences in school and with Osborn have made her suspicious of everybody.
When they return they tell the others what the big lie is. They weren't chosen for the Academy because they were the best, the most powerful or the smartest or most highly trained. They're actually the worst, with the worst psych test results or the most dangerous powers. They're not the most likely to become the next Captain America, but to become the next Red Skull. Striker says the heroes are afraid of them. Finesse says they should be. And Maddy has her suspicions confirmed.