In late 2016, Marvel gave the Great Lakes Avengers their own ongoing series. It ended after seven issues. Chabot only drew this issue, all the others were by Will Robson, but this was the best splash page in the series. Zac Gorman tried to present the GLA, who were standard superheroes (if questionably successful at it), with situations where standard superheroics were of limited use.
He moved them from Milwaukee to Detroit, setting them up in the remains of some old Stark factory (this during a period when Tony Stark was, by his standards, broke. Only one Quinjet for his Avengers team, the horror). They ended up against a former third-rate superhero, now politician, who was using supervillains to aid in gentrifying neighborhoods. By destroying what was there and driving out the people who lived there. That's what's left of him there in the background. After this, they dump his body in front of a hospital with a note describing him as a supervillain pinned to his chest.
I don't know what to make of that decision.
After that, they gotta face some quack scientist who captures Bertha to figure out how to reproduce her powers in a vitamin supplement. The team has to get themselves together enough to stop him, and then Deadpool shows up to personally tell them they got canceled. And during all that, Doorman's being followed around by a ghost that looks like a Mario that's fallen on hard times, who can't grasp he needs to move on.
Flatman was now leader of the team, as no one was sure where Mr. Immortal was, though he shows up eventually. When he does, he makes things worse. He and bertha have some bad history now, and he just seems to assume he gets to be leader again. Bertha reinvented herself as a plus-sized model and seemed much more short-tempered than before. Just kind of fed up with being on this team. Doorman had apparently been off working for Oblivion so long, he was largely out of touch with his friends and humanity in general. Also, he kind of sucked at ferrying dead people to the next world. Squirrel Girl's apparently too good to hang out with her old friends now. Ooh, la-de-da, she's on a real Avengers team.
I mean, not really, it was the crappy one Sunspot was leading after he bought A.I.M. It had Red Hulk on it, that is a clear sign of a shit Avengers team.
Gorman added two new characters to the team. One is Good, the girl covered in blood up above, who is also a werewolf. The supervillains hospitalized her brother, so she threw a bottle at the politician's head. This was during a different interaction, before she nearly mauled him to death. For some reason, I thought I'd read Good was supposed to be trans, but I'm not sure of that. Everyone always uses "her" when speaking to Good, so that's what I'm going with.
The other new character was Pansy, a vaguely goth young lady that found Mr. Immortal's phone in a graveyard and when Flatman started texting him about the team getting back together, decided to show up, because she didn't like to assume the texts weren't really for her. She never does much other than hang around and occasionally point out things nobody else is noticing. I don't know what, if anything, Gorman had planned for her down the line.
That first four issues, it feels like a book about friends who can't remember why they're friends anymore. Flatman's the one who seems to really need them to be a team again, desperate to prove he can hold this together. Doorman's been away so long, it's hard for him to remember what he's even supposed to know about things.Bertha's happy to see him and Doorman initially, but over the course of the first issue, it's like she remembers what idiots all her friends are, and she gets progressively more annoyed.
Mr. Immortal's return only makes it worse, and he's only there because Doorman pulled him out of the hole he was in. Good's there because she was being hauled into jail when the GLA's lawyer was showing up to get them out, and they covered for her. Pansy, as mentioned, showed up because she found a phone, and hangs around because. . .lack of anything better to do.
The fact they pull together in the second arc, and maybe even become inspirational figures to the people of Detroit suggests maybe was Gorman was going for the notion that even if you can't fix gentrification, corrupt politicians and urban infrastructure issues with punching, heroes can help people take pride in their city, and if you take pride in your city, maybe you can fix it up? I'm guessing. With more than 7 issues, maybe it would have become clearer.
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