So, when I decided to review this, I had it mixed up at first with the 2010 Brian Michael Bendis "Avengers #1." But, I'm not going to review that when I already have it planned to review this.
I will stay the course!
Plus, as I found out today, this Avengers story is going to come to an end this summer, Summer 2015, alongside the "New Avengers" book to make way for the new "Secret Wars" after the big event "Time Runs Out" comes to a close.
Which I haven't been reading because I'm already reading a good "end of the world in the future" book, New 52 Future's End, and mind you: DC did it first!
And they announced "Convergence" before "Secret Wars" so boom. Go DC!
But still, this Avengers book has brought on a lot of change to the mythos of the Avengers as we know it, adding new team-members and dealing with major, consequential events that have literally changed the face of the Earth and created multiple new teams and spawned new books. Basically, this book created the same problem that the "Green Lantern" books have: you can't read just one, you pretty much have to read all of them to get a full-story, even when there isn't an event going on.
Please, don't get me started on event comics nowadays.
Captain America ft. Characters You've Never Heard Of.
Our cover is actually pretty cool, headlining several new team members to our Avengers team as well as having Captain America Steve Rogers in the forefront to show whose in command. Side note: issues 2 and 3 continue the cover along, showing a full piece of artwork.
We open with a person who we discover is Steve Rogers narrating some of the events of the previous Avengers team, as well as one event that kick-starts the whole initial arc of the book titled "Avengers World." He wakes up and Tony Stark joins him as they get to work with a new plan to "get bigger." What does that mean? It should be painfully obvious thanks to the cover and the title of the issue.
Go figure.
We jump ahead one month where the villain Ex Nihlo is on Mars shooting origin bombs to create green life on the planet while his robot sidekick, Aleph, seems to take issue with it, considering it world razing. At first, this isn't a totally bad idea on the surface. Then we see that Ex Nihlo has plans to resurface Earth with a more natural look as well as recreate humanity into perfect specimens, thus we are left to assume that he is going to have an army of super beings at his call. So, not cool.
An ally, Abyss, remarks how foolish humans are because they've made tools so that they may have progress, and thus, they have become dangerous people. Ah, yes, tools are for babies and idiots. That's totally why you aren't using a holographic map that was made with tools, correct, Abyss?
Ex Nihlo and Abyss, not so much Aleph as his "personality" constantly changes, are both pretty cut and dry villains. Both want to do evil things and are hypocritical in doing so. I suppose they aren't what we're meant to be focusing on in this book, moreover the whole new aspect of the Avengers, but when we dedicate so many pages to them, it's hard to overlook just how bland they are.
Luckily, we get an escape from them as we focus in on our team of Avengers heading toward Earth. And yup, it's the same lineup as the movies. What a shock.
Though, I have to give credit to the team here. As you may well know, the team in the movies is constantly on the edge of a cliff, it's what adds to the tension of the story. Since this is a comic book, though, having that sort of tension would just get annoying after a while, so the team needs to be able to work well off of each other. It's just like if you had event comics coming out three times a year...
Oh.
But yeah, the team dynamic here is pretty great and you can tell that they all rely on their personalities and abilities for success. While Hawkeye uses a bow-like technology to scran for any signs of where Ex Nihlo is, Black Widow is using that information to pinpoint exactly where they are. Captain America flies the jet, and Iron Man and Hulk provide hypotheses of what might be going on and how its possible. Thor...is there for comic relief.
They arrive on the planet, asking Bruce Banner what needs to be done. Why, that's quite simple. HULK SMASH!
They charge into battle but are halted by Abyss and Ex Nihlo. Abyss uses violence to stop both Iron Man and Hulk while Black Widow asks Nihlo "to release the man with all the money."
Alright, that's a funny line.
Nihlo, however, tells them how hypocritical it is of them to use violence despite calling themselves heroes. Doesn't seem to stop him from blasting them away, despite literally just saying how violence is meant for nincompoops.
The action does take a bit of a downturn as Hulk gets manipulated by Abyss to attack Thor, because apparently Hulk feels threatened by Thor. It's just another excuse for Hulk to fight Thor, really, and it's tired and lame. Luckily, we have a great Captain America moment where he steps up to Abyss and Aleph and challenges them to a fight, telling them they haven't won so long as he's standing.
And he proceeds to get beaten down.
Yeah, the Avengers pretty much suck this issue, getting beat by a trio of villains you've never heard of and who are pretty darn generic in this book.
Nihlo, ever the smart one, sends Captain America back to Earth where he hopes for him to send a message to the rest of heroes, and it's here we see that he has bound up all the other heroes using the super vines of the new world. Even Thor, the God of Thunder.
That's a load of garbage. Thor could easily take on all three of these guys, even without Mjlonir, but he's stopped by a little vegetation? That's lame. The only reason this is happening is so the writers can overload the Avengers roster for a bunch of lame events to come in the following years (look right at you "Original Sin" and "AXIS").
And so our comic comes to a close with Captain America, the only sensible character in this whole thing apparently, waking up, suiting up, and taking what he and Tony talked about to heart and summoning forth a myriad of heroes to go rescue their friends, including Falcon, Sunspot, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Captain Marvel Carol Danvers.
Well, this comic is okay. Nothing too big. It definitely doesn't give off the grand feeling of new adventure that a #1 should, mostly thanks to a lackluster set of villains and their hypocritical dialogue. Plus, there are a few forced moments in the action that make you roll your eyes.
But the dynamic between the Avengers is great, their dialogue is fine, and Captain America is still really cool. It leaves wanting to know how this large group of Avengers is going to rescue five Avengers that could all easily slip out of that situation, but besides that, it's nothing too grand, like I said. When you reboot the book two years after a reboot just happened, this is what happens, Marvel.
Next week, sadly, we go on a downward slope as I look at the New 52's first "Teen Titans" issue and I'll shed some light on why it got so much hate, and how it hasn't gotten that much better at all.
I miss Wonder Woman already. See you then.
If you want to stay up to date on when I post, be sure to follow me on Twitter @seanovan13 and on Instagram @seanovan10. Thanks for reading!
Also I've got another blog, wordofsao.blogspot.com in which I'm doing daily episode reviews of the anime Sword Art Online. Today, I reviewed Episode 21, so if you wanna read up on what's happened or just start reading along, that's perfectly fine either way!
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