Review: Avengers #1.1
My first thoughts as I saw Avengers #1.1 was who is this comic aimed for, and what is its purpose? We have the current Avengers team, and then the young upstart Champions which are also both penned by Mark Waid. Don’t get me wrong, I think returning to the old days of Marvel is an interesting place to tell a few stories from, but I am hoping this book is much more than that. It would be cool if Waid touched on the lack of diversity on the team back then. I would love a book that wasn’t afraid to confront that topic.
The book starts with the founding members taking some time off and handing the reigns over to Captain America, and three other members they selected. Cap plays the usual boy scout, and not the Hydra Cap we are seeing currently. He is struggling with Hawkeye, who seems to be challenging him as the leader, and two former criminals, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who are the children of Magneto. I am curious to see if this will be a rehashing of some things for a younger audience, or a retelling of some things from the old days. Will Waid use all of these titles to retcon some things? Only time will tell.
Barry Kitson does a good job on art in making the book feel authentic to its time period. It was fun to see Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and more in their old costumes. There was a few moments that I felt like I was looking at a book by Jack Kirby, so that’s a good thing for what the title is going for. Our heroes look sharp and straight out of the Silver Age of comics. It was fun to see some old school over the top villains fighting our heroes, and they’re drawn well. Even the lettering was well done to the time period. Character names and plot points are in bold and capital letters to show the reader what is going on in that old heavy handed way that comics from this era used.
It is claimed that this series will have direct ramifications to the current Avengers title Waid is writing, and I cannot help but think it will have to do with their current conflict with Kang. That makes me a little excited for this series, and immediately changes things as we may not just see some isolated story set in Marvel’s past, but something where the heroes of old could meet the heroes of the current team. I must say if that is done well, it would make me immediately more excited for this series. It helps that Waid is writing all of these books and could find a way to tie them together.
This was an okay book, and it could get interesting if it truly ties into the current team, or it could be a fun little break from everything else Marvel is doing. I plan to keep my eye on this title, and I want to see where Waid is taking all of our Avengers, both new and old.
Story: Mark Waid Art: Barry Kitson
Story: 6 Art: 8 Overall: 7 Recommendation: Read
Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
“It would be cool if Waid touched on the lack of diversity on the team back then. I would love a book that wasn’t afraid to confront that topic.”. Really? What was lacking, exactly? Cap was a leftover from the previous team, Hawkeye an Iron Man villain and the twins were Romany, and TWINS, therefore unlikely to be “diverse” from each other, except for the gender thing. Had ALL the new Avengers been, let’s say, black, and also villains attempting to reform as heroes, it’s likely that racism could be seen in THAT portrayal.OTOH, I’ve always wondered whether Pietro was meant to be gay, as he could easily be read that way during this period. Likely why Northstar was such an easy version of the character for Byrne to create. To be fair, though, I can’t see where any new ground was covered in this issue. Marvel did a reworking of this period not long ago, and even it was unnecessary. Marvel storytelling at the time was based upon a lack of points in which “undiscovered stories” might be inserted, as opposed to the Distinguished Competition.