Avengers Assemble #1 review

There’s a new group of Avengers in town. Captain America is gathering heroes for a secondary squad of Earth’s mightiest heroes and first up are the Wasp, Photon and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu.

Or is it Master of the Ten Rings? He uses the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s magical hoops at least as much as martial arts as Cap’s New Kooky Quartet face a mystical threat in Germany. He also quips an awful lot which, as a devoted collector of his original series, in which he barely spoke when fighting, I find deeply weird.

Said mystical threat is Sin, daughter of the Red Skull. Last time I saw her she was dressing as a Nazi nun, but here she has a new look to match the magical helmet of hate she’s tracked down.

It’s a choice. So yes, the horned number sends out psionic waves, bringing out the worst in people. Even Avengers.

Meanwhile, back in Avengers Mansion – apparently there’s an Avengers Mansion again – other invitees are assembling, ready for any other crises that show up. Or perhaps a game of cards.

So we have, from top left, Hercules, followed by Lightspeed from Power Pack, Hawkeye, Living Lightning and She-Hulk. And Wonder Man shows up wearing a spectacularly bad costume. They’re relaxed in one another’s company, which makes sense as only Lightspeed – Julie Power – has never been an Avenger previously. She’s not the sole newbie for long, as soon another fresh face turns up. Not that you can see it behind some very Nineties armour.

He’s talking rubbish, of course. The jackets won’t save lives, but they may excite older readers – aren’t they all? – who followed Avengers in the 1990s, when team jackets were all the rage. It didn’t matter whether you had a fabulous costume, whether you were a martial artist who needed freedom of movement, whether you were actually an invulnerable goddess – you wore the leather jacket.

Will everyone fall in line this time? Photon already has a superhero jacket, and she’s always one to speak her mind, so hopefully not. Wonder Man Simon, though, might welcome an excuse to cover up that monstrosity he’s wearing. Heck, maybe he should borrow Night Thrasher’s massive overcoat when he swaps it for the biker jacket.

Well, it says something that writer Steve Orlando has me engaged. The Old Order Changeth stories are my favourite Avengers stories, and here we have a whole new Avengers team a-bonding. Reading around the subject, I learn that Cap’s initiative is the result of an impromptu Avengers team he acquired for the recent Blood Hunt crossover. Whatever the reason, I like the idea of an Avengers Unlimited, a team with an ever-changing roster ready to face anyone, anywhere, any time. They’re called the Avengers Emergency Response Squad, which apparently equates to AvengE.R.S. When surely it would be AvengersE.R.S. And isn’t every super team an emergency response squad?

The Avengers Mansion scenes were my favourite part of the issue, though Orlando does a pretty good job with the four saviours fighting Sin. Yes, this isn’t ‘my’ Shang-Chi, but it’s obviously the Shang-Chi Disney want Marvel Comics to show us, so I’ll put up with it. As for Jan, Steve and Monica, they’re all very recognisable and work well as a team. I’d say the Wasp is MVP, or at least The Bravest Avenger of Them All for this feat of derring do.

This story also gives us Avengers butler Jarvis, as happy as ever to buttle away for the good guys. Edwin refers to his new assistant, Sweeny, who doesn’t appear here, but I remember from a random issue of the current Avengers series that he’s the thug to whom Jarvis taught a lesson way back in Avengers Vol 1 #201. I do enjoy a bit of rehabilitation. Mind, rehabilitated villain Hawkeye does tell a terrible lie about comics’ second longest-serving manservant.

Behave Clint, Jarvis is English.

This issue slso sets up a tussle with the Marvel villain team that is probably the biggest, and also the lamest… but we’ll get to them next time, or whenever they slither centrestage.

Anyway, I enjoyed Orlando’s script a lot – if DC won’t let him pen any more issues of the excellent Justice League of America I’ll happily read his Avengers.

Penciler Cory Smith’s storytelling is pretty good, clear and concise. Characters are distinct, settings well rendered and the action never looks boring, which is great because the fight really does go on for a ridiculously long time. It’s four experienced Avengers – one of them cosmically powered – vs a baddie who can make people fight among themselves. My favourite visual sees Photon elect herself an agent of shield – sort of.

Unusually these days a comic company springs for an inker – or even two, as Smith’s work is embellished by Oren Junior with Elisabetta D’Amico. The finish is scratchy, but effective.

Where this comic’s visuals seriously fell down for me was in the colourwork. More and more I’m finding Marvel’s colour schemes to be unattractive, often murky and bland. The choices of hues may be more naturalistic than in the old days, but boy, did Silver and Bronze Age comics pop with life. Here the talented Sonia Oback paints fully half the book in swathes of reds and yellows and browns – the narrative reason is that it’s Sin’s power signature, but the combination of tones is dreary, I felt progressively more depressed as each page turn revealed more of the same. Thank goodness for the scenes back in the good old USA – there’s a single panel of Julie Power’s dizzyingly bright rainbow trail, and it is a delight.

The creative team’s second Cory, Cory Petit, gives us his usual clear as day fontwork, and his balloon placement is superb – you may not notice this aspect of the letterer’s craft, but you would were it bad.

Leinil Francis Yu draws a nicely traditional group shot for the cover, but goodness me, this is a very grumpy group.

I enjoyed this issue enough to decide to read the ongoing… but it turns out this is only guaranteed to be a five-issue mini-series. Yet, as usual, the covers will mention this only from next issue. Ah well, maybe it’ll do well enough to get promoted to ongoing. After all, we wouldn’t wish to waste those jackets.