#and yes even back then it was relentlessly mocked by critics and fans alike

[teatitty]

Okay so some context before we get into the read tonight: in 1996, Marvel decided to try and bring in newer, younger readers for series that were getting very low sales [like Avengers] by doing a cross-over event known as "Heroes Reborn" with every issue only costing 99 cents instead of the usual dollar-fifty. They thought the best way to do this was to give the comics over to Liefield and Lee, who had their own company by then, but ended the contract with Liefield after only 6 issues due to "low sales" in both his stories and handed some of them off to Lee and then gave the Avengers title over to Walt Simonson

Because of this, the writing in Heroes Reborn crossover is very messy, and a lot of plot threads Liefield had set up get completely dropped. In the main 616 Universe, all the hereos in this crossover had "sacrificed" themselves to defeat Onslaught and are believed dead. In reality, they were put into a pocket dimension created by Franklin Richards and are now teeeeeechnically livin as alternate versions of themselves, with revised origin stories, slightly different personalities [you'll see this most evidently with Wanda] the whole works

The first issue kinda just throws you into the deep end with very little explanation and so it's easy to get confused and wonder if this is another retelling or not but no just treat everything you're gonna see tonight as an alt verse until the very end when everyone gets transported back to 616 with their original personas etc. Right. With that outta the way we're gonna pull up the read and just go from here. Luckily it will not last long we can get thru it in one night easy lol