Review – Uncanny Avengers #1
Written by Rick Remender
Art by John Cassaday
Not content to publish a dozen titles featuring either Avengers or X-Men, the House of Ideas is now publishing a book with members of both teams. For those of you keeping score, this is the sixth ongoing Avengers title being published right now (and three of those ship bi-weekly). This superhero mashup also serves as the first book in the Marvel NOW! initiative. Marvel is changing creative teams, character rosters and costumes (with no explanation as to why the costumes changed that I can see). It’s easy to label this as a New 52-esque publicity stunt, but Marvel relaunches their books all the time, so who cares? The continuity is remaining intact, so this is just another Marvel media grab. That’s okay. They should totally go for the media grab. But for me as a reader, I’ve seen these relaunches before, so my mind isn’t exactly blown.
But what of the issue itself? John Cassaday delivers the type of art that only he can. Once again teamed with colorist Laura Martin, the softness in both the line work and color palette sets the sober tone of the story much like it did in Astonishing X-Men. It all works. There are some great action pieces and some really unsettling reveals in the issue. On the flip side, there are some strange character designs for the new villains that might take some warming up to.
As far as the plot, there’s a lot to like. The team comes together very organically following the events of Avengers vs. X-Men thanks to Captain America’s pledge to try to finally do right by the mutant population. The dialogue is all really tight and Wolverine’s eulogy to Xavier is moving. The villainous crazy talk is pretty solid, too, and given the level of crazy we’ve come to expect from this villain (spoiler free review here, kids)m that’s a good thing. If there’s one weak point, it’s that exactly one week after the reemergence of new mutants, we’re once again getting a story about the “mutant menace.” There are new things to bring to the table, of course, and Remender absolutely does. But there’s definitely a “we’ve seen this all before” vibe. Basically, this reads like an X-Men story that happens to have an Avengers villain.
It’s also worth noting that there are some weird inconsistencies timeline-wise between this book and AvX: Consequences, also released today. That doesn’t bode terribly well, but it’s not awful, either. There’s plenty of time for things to shake out okay.
Uncanny Avengers is a solid start to the Marvel NOW! era. It’s good, but not completely fresh, thanks to it being “Kill the muties” volume 1,473. I give Uncanny Avengers #1 4 out of 5 living winds. That’s a thing in this book. For real.
I’d go three out of five. They need to put a new face on “Kill the Muties” pretty damn quick for this to be at all interesting. And they damn well need to get rid of the talking wind.
Also, the level of remorse Cyclops lacks in BOTH books is pretty fucking astonishing. I agree that he “succeeded” in the end and there’s something t be said for that, but a proud Scott would STILL be somewhat heartbroken over the loss of Xavier, especially at his own hands.
Lacks? Did you actually read any of the books? I mean seriously? Scott seems torn up about everything. At the same time this is a man who has seen his fair share of grief and had to soldier on while dealing with people blaming him for everything while conveniently excusing others who have done worse (I don’t ever recall Wolvie blaming jean for her Phoenix episodes). I’m not sure what people are expecting him to do. Much like the AvX thing, how people blame him, what exactly was he supposed to do? No one can ever answer this question other than having him mindlessly join the church of Captain America and do what he says when he even admitted to not having a plan and wanted to wing it. I don’t think I can facepalm any harder than I am doing right now.
And this issue was horrible. The art was its only saving grace. It has a hackneyed set-up we’ve seen before (hell the idea of an Avengers/X-men team is nothing new), the characterization is poor and makes it hard to really care about the characters. The characters are consistent with AvX’s characterizations, but considering how everyone in that event seemed to think saving the world meant acting like assholes and how a good number of fans disliked how this character or that was portrayed, it seems like it would be prudent as hell to avoid that. In the end, I have a hard time caring about uninteresting characters who are so illogical they border on stupid in anything they say or do. I’m not even going to comment on continuity because everyone seems to be in agreement that remembering things is hard and looking them up is harder (the continuity issues had t be pointed out to me – I wasn’t even aware of them when I set fire to this issue in a fit of irritation). In any case, nice art isn’t enough to make this book work for me, nor will Wanda and her obvious self-hate (or is it a poor attempt at making us feel sorry for her? Let’s put out another long and contrived miniseries and blame Doom again) and her mindless musings. While she sits and wonders why more mutants be born, I will sit and wonder why more minorities should be born or why more homosexuals should be born or any person of a given genetic persuasion (this what these things are analogous to theme-wise right? Maybe I imagined all that? Maybe I’ve been lied too?) And while I do this I will identify with Wanda…no I can’t identify with someone like that, maybe I’ll feel sorry for her….no, no, wait maybe I should dislike her? Like her? Assume she’s a horribly selfish person (but she shed a tear, this means she’s sad and paid her dues and we should leave her alone, tight?)? If only the characterization was better and more clear like in any other work of fiction.
In any case, since I can’t help but think this book, most likely, will only get worse and will get by on cheap thrills and unexciting kills, I won’t be following this. I can get all that and more for a fraction of the price watching reruns of bad tv shows, like season 2 and 3 of Heroes.
If it’s not obvious I disagree with the comment I’m responding to and the review as well, but respect your right to a difference of opinion.