Posted in: Games, Recent Updates | Tagged: a-force, america chavez, angela, avengers, avengers academy, captain marvel, games, LGBTQ, loki, marvel, she-hulk, Singularity, thor, x-men

A-Force Brings Festive Cheer To Avengers Academy

By Joe Glass, Bleeding Cool's Resident Avengers Academy Junkie

Avengers Academy, the insanely addictive iOS and Android Marvel game which recasts the Marvel Universe characters as teenagers/college students, has started it's latest event (it has after all been a whole seven days since the last one).

This time focusing on a general winter and festive theme, it also focuses on the A-Force characters….sort of. The new characters available in the update and event include Jane Foster Thor, Miss America Chavez, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk (who is a premium character), Singularity, Lady Loki and…Angela. Who was never in A-Force.

There is, of course, a reason for this. The character that is glaringly missing (other than Nico Minoru, who was already featured in the previous Doctor Strange event) in this A-Force focused update is of course Dazzler, who is obviously missing because she is a mutant and thus falls under X-Men territory. And the game has so far featured no X-Men characters at all. Likely all down to glorified man-child and Trump lover Ike Perlmutter's insistence on cutting off Marvel's nose to spite it's face because they can only make an inordinate amount of money of X-Men property licensing and use instead of a metric f@$£-tonne amount of money on it.

It's particularly odd seen as other Marvel mobile game, Contest of Champions, DOES feature quite a few X-Men characters. So why the rules are relaxed for one game and not another is odd. And before anyone says anything about it being because an Avengers game: a) several X-Men have been Avengers and b) there are loads of characters in Avengers Academy who have never been Avengers.

Personally, I think the game would rake in the players with a few X-Men characters included, but c'est la vie.

At any rate, what is particularly awesome is that the update includes not one but two LGBTQ characters (Miss America Chavez and Angela), and the game has not shied away from featuring LGBTQ characters' sexuality openly, having previously had Union Jack in game come out and have a clear crush on Loki. Plus, whilst Loki in game had previously hinted at gender flexibility, we will finally be able to switch Loki's gender for the game too.

This event is set to last for four weeks, taking us passed Christmas and into the new year, when there will undoubtedly be yet another event asking players to spend more money on premium characters and spend an inordinate amount of time poking their smart device screens. But hey, those character designs are just SO cool!

Joe Glass is a Bleeding Cool contributor who spends an inordinate amount of time playing Avengers Academy and wanting more X-Men in everything. He's also a comic creator, writer of LGBTQ comic series The Pride, which is available on ComiXology and here!

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