Joe Casey et al: Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes Ultimate Collection

Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek showed that you could do very good drama by simply replaying historical events from the Marvel Universe with a different angle to the story (or stories), and it was a big hit with readers. Of course, it didn't hurt that the art was simply gorgeous.

Joe Casey has done something similar with his two Avengers mini-series, Earth's Mightiest Heroes Vol. 1 & 2. Here they are, collected in one large volume (2 x 8 issues makes for 370+ pages, folks) for $35 – which is pretty cheap for a Marvel paperback; far too often they're ridiculously expensive instead.

The first half of the book depicts how Iron Man gets the team started, overcoming the suspicions of the National Security Council and its liaison, Special Agent Murch, and then sees everything rapidly going to hell in a handbasket when founding member The Hulk loses it and goes on a rampage. Much of the book (that is, the first Earth's Mightiest Heroes volume) will be devoted to the ardorous process of overcoming this PR disaster and the general population's natural suspicions against some of the world's mightiest beings banding together.

A major step in that direction is taken when the team discovers Captain America floating in the sea in a state of suspended animation, and resurrects him. Cap isn't without issues of his own, though – haunted by memories of the death of Bucky, he desires revenge on Baron Zemo, the Nazi super-agent responsible. This is probably the major subplot backing up the major plot thread throughout the book, Iron Man's struggle to keep the team together and functional in the face of interior tensions and the demands of the military and the NSC. Others include Cap's initial aversion to young Rick Jones hanging about and his gradually developing friendship with the lad, as well as the issue of having an actual God in their midst – initially, the general consensus seems to be, "this is an incredibly powerful guy, so if he wants to pretend that he's an old Norse god, let's let him, as long as it doesn't get too silly". A nice touch.

Thor and Iron Man confrontation. Letting color do the
rendering works here, especially in the first panel.

And there are plenty of nice touches in the book, and a lot of good characterization. One episode that stands out for me is Rick Jones taking Captain America to the Vietnam memorial. Cap spends quite a long time looking at the wall, so finally Rick asks how much longer they're going to stay. Cap's response:
"For as long as it takes for me to read every name on this wall.
For as long as it takes to acknowledge every soldier that died…
…in a war that I missed."

(Obviously, but I'll point it out anyway just to be on the safe side, that isn't an endorsement of the Vietnam War but a warrior's regret that he wasn't there to protect his fellow soldiers.)

Anyway, by doing good deeds, the Avengers are gradually redeemed in the eyes of the public, and Cap gets his opportunity at revenge on Zemo, naturally discovering that revenge is a hollow triumph indeed. This is very good stuff indeed, and my only complaint is that the artwork doesn't always work as it should. It's not that it's bad, it's just that…

Look, I love nice rendering; beautiful drawings like Neal Adams inked by Tom Palmer or Gil Kane inked by Neal Adams have given me some of my earliest and greatest aesthetic experiences in life. Volume 1 artist Scott Kollins doesn't render; he uses the same thickness on his ink line throughout, offering only the barest of sculpting of the characters' faces and figures – and that's OK, because the color art by Morry Hollowell and Wil Quintana does a marvelous job with the rendering and mood-setting instead. But occasionally, there are pictures that just cry out for more sculpting by a lively ink line and some nice feathering, and there, the color art just isn't enough; instead, those pages or panels take on the look of a coloring book.

Hawkeye, coloring-book style.

It's not often, but when it happens, it just seems so unnecessary.

The second half of the book, collecting Earth's Mightiest Heroes Vol. 2, is penciled byWill Rosado and inked by veteran Tom Palmer, with Wil Quintana doing more traditional coloring. The rendering is exquisite (naturally, it's Tom Palmer we're talking about), but the figures and faces are a bit stiff, and the Wasp looks a bit frumpy at times – which doesn't work in a superhero book, unless you're doing it to make a point. (Even though I'm all for not pushing women to strive for impossibly supermodel-esque bodies, superheroes do have "heroic proportions", and all the men in the book get them.)

Anyway, there is still the problem with appearances, with not just former crook Hawkeye now in the Avengers, but an actual android – created by the evil robot Ultron, for crying out loud! The Vision has to struggle not just with who he himself is, but also with S.H.I.E.L.D. putting him through the wringer. Meanwhile, the responsibilities of leading the Avengers – who suffer quite a bit of intra-team tension – takes a toll on new chairman Hank Pym, who eventually experiences a mental breakdown, creates a new persona for himself as the rogue Yellowjacket and claims to have killed Hank Pym. To cure him, the Avengers play along with his delusion, and the Wasp even marries him.

I'm not too keen on this part, as it sort of strains credulity, even though Casey struggles mightily to make it work. I'd have preferred if he'd concentrated more on the characters and their development instead of the sometimes rather childish bickering among the team and the rather outrageous-soap-opera-ish Yellowjacket sub-plot. The Vision's path towards becoming more human while dealing with the suspicions of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the NSC is a far more interesting sub-plot in my humble opinion.

Yellowjacket. (Psychology majors might note that the "enter the patient's psychosis with him"
line of  therapeutic intervention was tried in the sixties, not to any great success.)

(I'll also mention the role Jarvis plays throughout both story arcs as a constant source of support and grounding in reality for the superheroes. It's another of those nice touches.)

In summary, not perfect but quite good. Well worth your time – not least because it lets you get to know characters like Hank Pym and the Scarlet Witch before insensitive creators wrecked their lives for petty sensationalism. Recommended.

Brian Michael Bendis & Romita Jr.: The Avengers Vol 1 (2011)

OK, so this is what I chose to start with from yesterday's haul; it collects Avengers vol 4, #1-6. The story in brief (sans spoilers): Steve Rogers is reforming the Avengers. Immortus/Kang the Conqueror suddenly appears before them, and after the short but obligatory fight tells them that time itself is broken. Ultron has taken over the future, and can't be defeated – except by the Avengers' children, and once in power, they're going to destroy Time. Kang can't have that, so if the Avengers don't fix things, he's going to destroy everything – because what's the point of being the ruler of time if time doesn't exist, anyway?

Kang then returns to the future, a future where he has some rather surprising allies as well as an unexpected boss. The Avengers remain, debating what to do and to what extent they can trust Kang. Eventually, they decide that they have to construct a time machine to check his claims out, and since Reed Richards isn't in, and Iron Man doesn't trust Vincent van Doom, they approach the Kree Marvel Boy Noh-Varr instead. While the time machine is under construction, they are attacked, first somewhat inexplicably by Wonder Man, then by creatures from another future led by Apocalypse. A massive fight with the latter ensues before Iron Man manages to solve the situation in a rather clever way.

Then, Wolverine, Iron Man, Noh-Varr and Captain America go to the future to try and settle the situation there – arriving right into the battle royal between Ultron and one of several armies Kang has assembled to defeat him (failing every time) – whereas the rest of the team go to contain the outbreak of chaos that has hit New York City due to the disturbances in the timestream, including a Martian invasion (complete with Killraven) and Galactus.

So the part of the team remaining in our time has its work cut out for it, but it doesn't really work as much more than a placeholder for them while the real story is resolved in the future. That story is, on the other hand rather good, so I won't spoil it for you with details.

Anyway, it's a decent read; Bendis tendency towards the glib in his dialogue veers into "annoyingly glib" territory in the first chapter or so, but once the action starts, he stays clear of that trap. Some of the action sequences aren't really necessary but seem thrown in just to have some action sequences, but that is pretty much par for the course. The second half, when you get the explanations for much of what has gone before and various plot twists are thrown at the reader and elegantly resolved, is a rollicking good read, and lifts the book into "recommended" territory. The Wonder Man bit is almost completely irrelevant to the story, but I expect that it is part of a subplot that is to be resolved later.

John Romita Jr. is his old competent self with massive heroes and villains, good storytelling and excellent posing of the characters, well worth your while. Klaus Janson does the inking, so it's of course great – except a couple of pages in the last chapter that seem rather rushed; but they may be by Tom Palmer who also contributed (deadline crunch?).

Finally, big kudos to colorist Dean White who does one of the best coloring jobs I've seen on a mainstream Marvel title. He doesn't overwhelm the line art with colors, but is capable of some rather nice painting and spectacular effects when it suits the story. The end result is very good; helping the storytelling along, not intruding on it, and looking darn nice in the bargain. Again, kudos for that.

So, how good is this Avengers collection, then? Well, it's not a masterpiece but it's certainly recommended; a classical Marvel tale about time travel and threats to the Multiverse with plenty of plot twists. Good, solid and nice-looking superhero entertainment – and that's nothing to sneeze at.