Uncanny Avengers #1

I stopped by my local Newbury Comics recently and picked up a couple of the recent Marvel Now debut issues. This is the second of those. My review of Thor: God of Thunder #1 was posted yesterday.

This week I'm gearing up for the Arisia convention this weekend in Boston. My small-press comic company, Dandelion Studios will be in the dealer room all weekend. In addition, I'll be doing a reading of some of my prose fiction (along with authors Resa Nelson and Daniel P. Dern) at 10 AM on Saturday, and I'll be on a minicomic panel Saturday at 10 PM. I'll also hopefully be picking up some new comics to review throughout the weekend.

But for now, on to the business at hand.

Title: Uncanny Avengers #1
Date: December, 2012
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Rich Remender
Artist: John Cassaday
Colorist: Laura Martin
Letterer: VC's Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Daniel Ketchum, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso

First issues of team comics tend to fall into formula, simply because there is limited space and a fairly fixed agenda that needs to be accomplished. Team members need to be introduced and recruited, and by the time that is done there is usually just about enough space to introduce the villains and jumpstart a bit of plot.

This book was further saddled with a load of continuity baggage as it worked through the aftermath of the recent Avengers vs. X-Men storyline.



SPOILER WARNING



Charles Xavier is dead.

Well, actually he's Marvel-dead, and since his name isn't Uncle Ben that means he's not really dead. But we're all supposed to pretend that he is so that characters like Wolverine and Havok can wax emotional. There was nothing wrong with these opening scenes; it just all felt like going through the motions.

From there Captain America and Thor show up to recruit Havok to lead Cap's new mutant/nonmutant super team. Cap is handled well. Thor plays big goofy comic relief, which in this case is actually fairly funny. About halfway through coffee, a villain starts wrecking the neighborhood, and the heroes leap into action in what was essentially a jobber squash to show off the heroes doing their thing.

We move on to Scarlet Witch and Rogue, who have a well-written and genuinely intense verbal confrontation. Wanda is a character that I really haven't ever seen featured all that much here, and her response to Rogue's righteous bluster is really good.

Sadly the whole thing gets interrupted by a group of generic villains, and a character is mauled because, well, there really hasn't been any gratuitous gore so far, and we can't have one of the female character go and steal the show, now can we?

Ends with a big villain reveal that was okay for what it was.

This has potential, a fact that I may not have actually conveyed all that well. Unfortunately, the limitations of the Marvel Universe (even the sorta-rebooted Marvel Now), and the fallback to cliches keep this from getting me interested enough to want to read any more of it.

Rating: 4/10