I’m continuing my read of the Heroes Return era of the Avengers titles. We’re getting to the second half of the first year, with Grim Reaper’s plan for the Avengers, Iron Man facing his arch-enemy, a new Captain America ongoing and a conflict between two founding Avengers.
The Mighty Thor#5
Two moments here show why it works so well to have the god of thunder with a human secret identity. As medic Jake Olson, Thor has an awkward encounter with Jane Foster. Later, he goes beyond his responsibilities when he recognizes that a man who seems to be suffering a heart attack has a different problem and the only solution is to cut right into him right in an ambulance, when that’s not part of his duties.
In the main plot, a shock jock starts picking on Thor. This leads to an intruder who feels that it’s up to him to defend Thor from that kind of scum. Thor’s reaction to the whole mess is excellent (although his dialogue is overly stylized- I know if it’s a tough balance and that this issue has scenes where people are supposed to recognize something’s up with Olson but it’s a bit much.) The story is generic for that kind of commentary, but it’s fun, and not too bad for a single issue comic dealing with a contemporary topic along with ongoing subplots in Olson’s private life and the big mystery of what happened to Asgard.
B+
Thunderbolts#18
There’s a scene in the opening where Atlas has a heart to heart with Jolt, that reveals the psychological depth of a guy who seems like a bit of a lunk. It even serves to justify things that came across like plot-induced stupidity.
The team is ambushed by Cyclone of a new Masters of Evil, as part of a larger recruitment effort. It’s a relatively low-stakes fight where the villain has fun with-well, technically they’re not yetheroes. It’s a solid issue which sets up future conflicts, although right now the challenge of someone bringing them back to the dark side doesn’t seem that compelling. Neither do hints of something going on with Songbird. The media venture is promising.
B+
TheAvengers#8-9
This double-issue story introduces key characters for the rest of the run: Silverclaw, Triathlon and the Triune Understanding.
It has a cute efficient opening with Jarvis trying to meet a young girl he’s sponsoring who is visiting New York City for the first time. We get all sorts of small moments in the first few pages, like Firebird not being very happy with how revealing a costume the Wasp made for her is, Scarlet Witch going for something inspired by her gypsy heritage and Jarvis paying attention to the other side’s strategies. We get a sense of why theAvengersare off their game, and it’s a moment we see often in superhero comics, where it’s manufactured drama. But here it comes across as character-based. Wanda recognizes that they haven’t enough time to train into a coherent unit. Firebird’s worries about her microwave-based powers causing sterility and other health effects are reasonable. Clichés in another title would be earned here.
The A-plot is okay. I thought it was a single issue story setting up a later rematch, since the cliffhanger is more emotional, with a twist in the Vision/ Scarlet Witch/ Wonder Man love triangle. And that is one of the most compelling love triangles I’ve seen in comics, because the specific history of the characters means that it could go either way. Magnum’s not that imposing as a villain, but there is a twist that shows what’s at stake for him that makes it more compelling and justifies a two-parter (and I know that in earlier and laterAvengersruns, there are many two-parters with lamer villains.)
It is distracting that Jarvis’s sponsee randomly has super-powers. That type of absurd coincidence (which piles up in superhero comics) is a bit of a pet peeve. She’s likable.
Triathlon is different. It’s a transparent effort to create a new character who is set-up for a much larger role with his connection to a big mystery. His power-set is mid-tier (three times as effective as any human), which helps the sense that he’s not jammed down our throats. He’s brave for fighting Moses Magnum, but he’s going to need the team’s help. He’s confident and arrogant, but theAvengersare suspicious of him, so he’s not Poochie.
I am getting a sense of why this run is popular, and by extension what some readers felt was lost at Marvel with the shift to the cinematic storytelling and writing for the trade, which would soon be popularized in the Ultimates, and be part of Bendis’ 200+ issue run (I didn’t realize it was that big; if I ever get to it, that reread is going to be an interesting project.) It’s gotta be similar to how Superman fans liked the bronze age comics of Cary Bates, Eliot S Maggin and Curt Swan and didn’t care for the changes afterCrisis on Infinite Earths/Man of Steel. The superheroes are treated with dignity. Conflicts grow organically. The material is dense, with so much happening each page, but it’s not boring. The 90s have a bad rap, but that approach certainly works in the hands of Kurt Busiek and George Perez.
A
Iron Man#8-10
While working with a former associate targeted by Whiplash, Tony realizes that his computers have been compromised by the Mandarin. He’s rescued by the Black Widow during a fight with mercenaries, and even though he’s severely injured, he decides to tackle his arch-enemy.
The Mandarin is an odd supervillain. If you look at lists of the best Iron Man stories, he’s suspiciously absent. Part of it may be that top Iron Man writer David Michelinie never tackled him, and the Matt Fraction run saved him for the final storyline. There is also the yellow peril problem, which may be why they did the fake-out with Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3, before Tony Leung played the real Mandarin in Shang-Chi, where the character was combined with Shang-Chi’s father.
This story feels like anAvengersarc, or something that exists in the same universe, taking pains to explain why an injured Iron Man has to fight his archenemy, rather than calling theAvengersfor help. His spaceship looks cool, and foreign superheroes treat him with appropriate levels of reverence.
Structurally, it seems to set up some kind of twist with the Mandarin which never arrives. Iron Man realizes early in the story that his greatest enemy is responsible for some of his problems, and eventually there’s a showdown and Mandarin’s just like he’s always been. There’s a line about how Mandarin’s vision of a feudalist society can’t work in the modern era, so this story is trying to say something new about a decades-old superhero conflict. Sean Chen depicts epic scale and historical violence well, so this ends up being a decent story, elevated by the shape Iron Man’s in at the end of it all.
B+
Iron Man & Captain AmericaAnnual ‘98
This annual is set while Iron Man is still recovering from injuries from a fight with the Mandarin, cowritten by Busiek, Waid and Roger Stern, with art by Patrick Zircher. The collaboration works decently in this particular annual, given its scope. Iron Man and Captain America work together against Modok, while Cap is pissed off that Tony used alien tech to play around with the minds of the world. It’s a legitimately interesting superhero conflict.
It kicks off with a relatively typical Captain America story, where supervillain Mentallo tries to read the minds of everyone on Earth. That draws in Tony Stark, who is able to best him in a battle of minds and then makes everyone in the world forget that he’s Captain America. It’s a retcon that creates a new conflict between Tony and Steve, based on their values, kind of a proto Civil War. One detail I like is that Tony Stark got involved because a villain tried to control everyone on Earth telepathically, and Tony Stark happened to one of those people, with precautions against mental takeovers.
This leads to a new mission where Captain America is challenged at his core beliefs. Both missions are pretty decent, with the second story featuring a utopian society founded by someone Tony Stark once had an unpleasant encounter with (As an example of Tony’s psychological depth, he recognizes his mistakes there) targeted by MODOK, who makes a lot of sense for this team-up, since he was introduced in the Captain America comics, but feels right as an Iron Man foe (he was in the cartoon.) MODOK is able to take advantage of the groupmind and may achieve his most powerful form. And it ends with Cap forced to make a difficult decision. This is a model team-up where the conflict is earned, and even when the superheroes save the day, their differences aren’t resolved. The main difference is that they’ve lost their initial confidence in their rightness.
A-
Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty#1
It seems a bit weird for Marvel to go with a second Captain America title. Eventually it was established as a 12-issue maxi-series. Originally, it seemed to be a book for Waid and Garney when Kubert took over the other book (in fairness, Captain America was pretty popular with Waid and Garney.)
This title is more of an anthology, outside the usual Marvel time. And it subverts this not by a flashback, but by kicking off in July 4 2001, which is a few years after the publication. That leads to a standard flashback about a story where Sharon Carter (this was before he knew her name) had a secret goal she didn’t want to share with Cap. That’s a moral dilemma that gets explored in the Brubaker era and I guess this is an example of one run walking so another could run. The questions of what Cap is supposed to do as an icon get some interesting development in the next few years, and this is a decent step in that journey.
The villain’s a rogue SHIELD agent. He has some decent moments, like when he threatens his former colleagues, even if it is a bit generic (and likely was in 1998.) I do like the idea of an ambitious agent upset that he’s an anonymous number, trying to make a name for himself. And the conflict with Cap getting an order to terminate the bad guy, and Sharon Carter refusing to let him do it is a decent one. The bookends set in the future raise an interesting question: Have the Captain America and Sharon Carter of the current comics reached that stage by now? Are the future sequences now in their past?
B+
Thunderbolts #19
The Thunderbolts aren’t finding much public support as superheroes, and considering an offer to go back to crime when local teens tell them about a conspiracy involving a militia backed up by a monster: Charcoal the Burning Man. He was created in a Wizard contest, so this is a decent title for that character to pop up in.
One thing I like about the series is that the characters are struggling to do the right thing, and the temptation is real. Jolt has an outburst that seems reasonable for a teenager realizing the world is more complex, but that the rest of the team is giving up way too easily. This is a team book with some decent conflicts. It’s a satisfying single issue story that fits the larger arc, and where the Thunderbolts are at this stage.
Comics at this time seem to be shifting to a different type of storytelling. At this point the norm is dense shorter stories where it’s ordinary for a superhero team to have a single issue adventure. Soon, the norm will be TPB-length cinematic epics, with single issue stories focusing on solo adventures, bystanders or set-up to something coming later. That leads to some good comics, and the consensus is that superhero comics generally get better in the 2000s than in the 90s, but I could see why fans of a certain type of team book were so grouchy about the shift to writing for the trade.
A
TheAvengers#10-11
This two-parter feels like a Silver Age annual. The public commemorates AvengersDay, a big celebration in New York City that gets the attention of celebrities and Marvel superheroes. Wanda goes to confront Agatha Harkness about Wonder Man’s irregularreturnfrom the dead, and his brother- the Grim Reaper- bringsAvengersback from the dead in an effort to punish the team, setting the currentAvengersagainst their fallen comrades.
Wanda’s arc is the most significant, setting up thereturnof Wonder Man, her realization that she loves him and new developments in the love triangle with the android his brain patterns are based on. It’s one of the best superhero resurrections because it is so well earned. This was not intentional at the time, but Wanda’s increased powers fit later developments inAvengers: Disassembled pretty well. It echoes nicely that the developments in the firstAvengersstory of this period lead to the end of the era.
There are so many small moments that I like. One recurring bit is the has-been media types doing color commentary forAvengersDay, and one of them tries to save the day from a supervillain plot. Busiek uses narration really well, like when Wanda is absorbed with her own problems and completely unaware that Grim Reaper defeated her team-mates. I love that there’s a sequence of villains responding to a news item about theAvengers, and one of them is the Grim Reaper, except he’s going to attack them a few pages later.
George Perez is fantastic on the book, and this is one of his best stories, thanks to all the cameos, the epic battles with DeadAvengersand excuses to depict classic moments. It might be a bit too easy for the Grim Reaper to bring people back from the dead, but the results are excellent.
A
Captain America#9-12
Something is convincing accomplished Americans to act in outrageous ways, and that sets up the arc. In the first section, Steve finds a homeless family hiding in his apartment, and tries to get the father a job at a construction site, where the guy in charge has a breakdown and hires the Rhino for some insurance fraud. This leads to an impressive set piece with Captain America, Sharon and a civilian trapped under wreckage.
The story is a bit episodic. Another challenge includes a showdown with a former ally. There’s an impressive action scene where Cap has to prevent a plane from going off, but the showdown itself is a bit of a letdown, even as a small part of the larger story.
The theme of a twisted American dream fits Cap, as well as the Dr. Strange villain brought over the arc (It’s Nightmare- It’s not a particularly important 25 year old spoiler.) It sets up an apocalyptic challenge with Captain America in the world of nightmares and someone possessing his body (which has been an element of some of my favorite Captain America stories, so I don’t really mind even if the idea of someone evil who looks like Cap is a bit played out.) The story is a bit self-consciously inspirational, but it fits the character and the context of a story about nightmares and dreamers.
Kubert’s art is exciting. I completely see why he was one of the most popular artists in comics at this time. He helps sell the outrageous big moments, and captures different settings (dreamscapes, military bases, an apartment building full of love) quite well.
B+
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