Pitch this! – Bloodstone Academy

So while I was at work, I was thinking about how at the start of the new series making their debut during the All New All Different phase for Marvel – Howling Commandos was suppose to have Elsa Bloodstone as part of the roster but then she kinda just disappeared. It was weird in a sense that she had her own mini series for Secret Wars so you’d think that when Marvel is making a monster squad to fight other monsters, she’d be right at the front of it with guns blazing.

As you know, that didn’t happen at all so this is just my thoughts on what if Marvel actually went forward with her being on Howlings and this is spiritual sequel in a sense to deal with how that series got wrapped up. You never know however as Marvel still has more series to announce for the Marvel NOW! phase so maybe, just by some random miracle, we’ll actually get a series about her.

So here’s the whole pitch done in a mock interview style (similar to Newsarama), the elevator pitch for the series is Elsa Bloodstone is given a bunch of money to start her own school to train the next generation of monster hunters that would deal with problems that the usual kid Avengers can’t handle.

I present to you – Bloodstone Academy.

Marvel NOW!’s “Divided We Stand” seems teetering on a generational divide within the Marvel U, but you may have announced a certain red head heroine that hasn’t been seen since Secret Wars wrapped up until now.

Launching this fall, Bloodstone Academy brings the no-nonsense gun totting bad ass known as Elsa Bloodstone back on to the Marvel NOW! scene – and doing it with a large group of misfits teens that will challenge Elsa taking on a leading role but also test out this new generation that isn’t quite ready for the spotlight. Series writer Ian Aspden describes Bloodstone Academy as a series that has the range of an action flick that collides with some teenage drama and plenty of satire.

Ian Aspden has quite a bit planned for this series as he promises to explore the hidden parts of the certain state of the Marvel NOW! status quo, and Newsarama caught up with him to learn more about this debut series.

BtS: Ian, what can you tell us about this new Elsa Bloodstone ongoing?

Ian: Well, the thing is that it isn’t just about her. It’s more of gap filler as the Marvel universe has seen former teams dissolve and now with the idea that young new establishment heroes such as Ms Marvel or Miles Morales as Spiderman, where does that leave the less family friendly and wholesome would be heroes?

It really started as this parody idea of all the former hench groups such as AIM before they got bought out or the spider henchmen army that was operating alongside the Superior Spiderman. Sure, we had someone like The Maker aka Ultimate Reed Richards but what if they weren’t up to his standards? This series is also about the villains trying to reclaim their former glory and they prove to be an interesting counter measure to Elsa’s heroes in training.

BtS: Can you tell us about how the Bloodstone Academy is being established? How will it affect Marvel NOW! and why did you choose Elsa Bloodstone? 

Ian: The base operation for the Bloodstone Academy is that this is world that doesn’t have a team that can handle situations that the more public friendly Avengers could deal with. It’s really about mashing together the mission statement that the Howling Commandos and X-Force dealt with, they fight monsters and take out the the creators like The Maker in a style that is befitting for Elsa Bloodstone’s character.

Right off the bat, she has her own mission – Finding her missing brother, Cullen. The last time we saw him was being detained by SHIELD and Elsa wasn’t too happy about the situation. This series is set quite some time after that moment as we discover how Cullen escaped and what he was still searching for as the obvious answer is Arcade due to the events of Murder World.

It plays a key into setting up the relationship Elsa has with SHIELD as after the whole Stand Off situation, the concept of Bloodstone Academy serves as recruitment tool for them to trust and if you factor in Elsa’s history with her family legacy, if you need something done – She can handle it without a fuss and off the record which is the most ideal thing for SHIELD right now.

I just like the idea of taking fairly well known “secret” fandom characters, not just known for being in an MCU flick or a Netflix series, the kind of characters that are used to test the “true” comic book fan. One of characters that I had a bit of a difficult time nailing down was Mania. These characters are often created and used just for a single run so with this being my first step into the pool so to speak, I felt a bit nervous asking someone like Remender if it was cool to use his characters.

BtS: The concept of Elsa Bloodstone hunting down monsters as been done in other series, what do you hope to bring to the character? Can you clue us in on what other characters to expect?

Ian: What I want to establish with Elsa is that while she’s mostly known as operating as lone wolf (aside from the terrific Nextwave run), this will be her taking the lead in a weird X-Men kind of way as this book is a throwback to Mansion or even when you had Wolverine training kids to fight sentinels or what not.

One of my favourite aspects is creating the villains that Bloodstone recruits will have to deal with. To go back to the earlier mention of AIM, my take is that there’s a group that just said “to hell with you!” to Sunspot and the only alternative was The Maker’s weird monster making experiments, they’re just try to redo the AIM that they were use to – Let’s call it their Make AIM Great Again! moment [*laughs*]

They call themselves S.I.M – Superior Ideas & Mechanics as they gather up the former hench groups like the private army spider themed from Superior Spiderman arc, the not quite deadly enough ninjas from The Hand. While they are viewed as kind of pathetic in terms of fighting teams such as Avengers, they make a pretty great punching bag for Elsa and her students to rough up.

You can expect mostly teenage characters such as Mania and Cullen but also some that have been left on the shelf such as Chase from the Runaways or Wolfbane. I wanted to get a wide range of different characters but with the common factor being their age as being older than typical teen characters like Ms Marvel but not quite adults either.

BtS: Any other minor details that aren’t too big of a spoiler? Favourite moments for the series?

Ian: Well, there’s this one part when they actually establish the setting for the Bloodstone Academy and there’s this part that involves Man-Thing in a new way that hasn’t been done before, it’s our Danger Room moment if you will. I think that might be giving away some major details, oops.

BtS: Big picture, what should fans look forward to with this ongoing series?

Ian: If you are a fan of Elsa Bloodstone or series with a tone feel such as X-Force or the bit more weird short arcs when Frank Castle was a Frankenstein creature, you’ll probably dig this. It’s throwing together a lot of action with character beats that fans should be familiar with that have been missing since the Marvel NOW! ball has been rolling, it’s really just about establishing parts of the world that you have seen before but with a twist.