Miles Morales Finds A New Home as Waid and Asrar’s ‘Avengers’ Line-Up is Confirmed

Whatever the Marvel Universe looks like after Secret Wars, we now have confirmation that Miles Morales is a part of it. The final members of Marvel's post-Secret Wars Avengers roster were revealed this morning, and as just about everyone had guessed, the figure front and center is Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man. He joins a team that also includes Iron Man, Vision, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Thor (current version), Nova (Sam Alexander), and Ms Marvel. All of which most people had also already guessed.

The creative team for the Free Comic Book Day comic that introduces this team has been revealed as Mark Waid, Mahmud Asrar and Laura Martin; presumably they'll also be the creative team on the title proper.

Wired revealed the final cover on Thursday morning, and it's great news for fans of Morales, and maybe not such great news for fans of the Ultimate Universe. The cover seems to confirm that the outcome of Secret Wars will be a reconstituted Marvel Universe incorporating elements of other realities, but it seems a safe bet that the familiar Marvel Universe and its continuity will retain primacy. Morales may not be the only Ultimate refugee, but he'll be the one that counts.

Does this mean we'll see two heroes named Spider-Man running around, or is Peter Parker about to get replaced again? We're willing to bet it means the former, and everyone will just have to adjust. We'll be curious to see if any other multiversal refugees make it to the Marvel Universe, with Spider-Gwen as the most obvious candidate.

If this is the entire Avengers roster --- and it may not be --- it's interesting for a number of reasons. First, it's a return to a modest seven-member team (which used to be the UN charter-approved limit for Avengers teams) after the days of Jonathan Hickman's sprawling "Avengers World" roster. It's also a roster that skews unusually young; Morales, Ms Marvel and Nova are all teenagers, and the Avengers has only very rarely had teenage members on the active roster in the past, sometimes unwittingly. (Hi Rage.)

Most surprisingly, the roster includes only one white male member. And even that's not confirmed. We don't actually know who is in the Iron Man armor, but Tony Stark is always a safe bet. The rest of the team is made up of one white woman (Thor), two African-American men (Captain America and Spider-Man), one Pakistani-American woman (Ms Marvel), one Hispanic American man (Nova), and an android (Vision).

Based on our Harvey/Renee Index system, where a proportionately representative team of six non-android members would have two straight white guys, this team is actually more diverse than the US population! That's a welcome change of pace in an industry where the inverse is usually the standard.

Of course, only two women in a seven member team is still an egregious shortfall --- half the population, guys --- and as we've noted previously, there has never been an actively serving LGBT Avenger, and this roster doesn't appear to address that oversight. (However, several Avengers have come out after serving, and the members of the affiliated Young Avengers team are mostly LGBT.)

Our advice? Put America Chavez on this team and give Tony Stark a boyfriend.

Wired also revealed the final Free Comic Book Day cover for Uncanny Inhumans by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven, with a roster of Medusa, Triton, Inferno, Iso, Naja, and a burning fella who is probably Johnny Storm. That's maybe one too many fire-themed heroes for one team.