Post by goldenfist on May 8, 2008 7:50:16 GMT -5
Ign.com reviews Avengers'Invaders #1.
Alright. I'm going to be realistic about Avengers/Invaders. It's the kind of project that's not aimed at fans like me. And here's the thing, when you examine what's true about Avengers/Invaders #1, you'll instantly know whether or not you should bother. Facts that irritate me: 1) judging from the cover (which is necessary - more on that later), there's no set team of Avengers, so a shallow explanation is doubtless forthcoming; 2) there's no Secret Invasion tie-in and it exists outside normal Avengers titles, signaling there will be little, if any, long-term ramifications on said characters; 3) there's some dodgy don't-ask-just-accept-it time travel at play here as a means to an end, which sort of falls apart upon closer examination.
It's important to note those things because the prospective audience for Avengers/Invaders won't care. We're firmly in the middle of what will surely be looked back upon as Alex Ross's Golden Age Love Affair Period (or something to that effect). If you're eating up his concepts on things like Justice Society and Project Superpowers, you'll probably be able to overlook what's effectively a questionable continuity story created for the sole reason of seeing the Human Torch alongside Ms. Marvel and Sub-Mariner team up with Luke Cage (which, thinking about it, is plausible without A/I, but anyway...).
Now, fair enough, some of this is conjecture. I don't know for certain that after twelve issues, we won't see some grand character arc for Spider-Woman that'll pop up in future Avengers books, or that, say, Toro will somehow not make it back to the past and will go on to become a fixture in the current Marvel U. I don't know that the time travel isn't a hoax, or that it doesn't have a perfectly fine explanation that doesn't irrevocably change Captain America's entire trajectory as a hero. But I have to speculate because issue #1 of A/I doesn't give a lot to go on. The Avengers participate in name only; the book should be called Thunderbolts/Invaders because that's the only team who makes an appearance. I'd love to chalk it up to scene-setting, but that's not it, because there's really very little setup to speak of. The Invaders are transported to the future. There's a fight. To be continued. It's all a little maddening in its refusal to explain exactly why a book like this needs to exist, and specifically why it needs twelve installments if the first one isn't going to cover very much ground.
In essence, Avengers/Invaders #1 is the sort of thing you know you'll dig before you even open the first issue. As a fan who's thoroughly preoccupied with the late '80s Marvel and later, this sort of thing doesn't exactly push my buttons in any noticeable way. Flip through it and see if it catches your interest, but just be aware that this first issue probably won't drum up much enthusiasm that's not already there.
Review Score: 7.0 Decent
Alright. I'm going to be realistic about Avengers/Invaders. It's the kind of project that's not aimed at fans like me. And here's the thing, when you examine what's true about Avengers/Invaders #1, you'll instantly know whether or not you should bother. Facts that irritate me: 1) judging from the cover (which is necessary - more on that later), there's no set team of Avengers, so a shallow explanation is doubtless forthcoming; 2) there's no Secret Invasion tie-in and it exists outside normal Avengers titles, signaling there will be little, if any, long-term ramifications on said characters; 3) there's some dodgy don't-ask-just-accept-it time travel at play here as a means to an end, which sort of falls apart upon closer examination.
It's important to note those things because the prospective audience for Avengers/Invaders won't care. We're firmly in the middle of what will surely be looked back upon as Alex Ross's Golden Age Love Affair Period (or something to that effect). If you're eating up his concepts on things like Justice Society and Project Superpowers, you'll probably be able to overlook what's effectively a questionable continuity story created for the sole reason of seeing the Human Torch alongside Ms. Marvel and Sub-Mariner team up with Luke Cage (which, thinking about it, is plausible without A/I, but anyway...).
Now, fair enough, some of this is conjecture. I don't know for certain that after twelve issues, we won't see some grand character arc for Spider-Woman that'll pop up in future Avengers books, or that, say, Toro will somehow not make it back to the past and will go on to become a fixture in the current Marvel U. I don't know that the time travel isn't a hoax, or that it doesn't have a perfectly fine explanation that doesn't irrevocably change Captain America's entire trajectory as a hero. But I have to speculate because issue #1 of A/I doesn't give a lot to go on. The Avengers participate in name only; the book should be called Thunderbolts/Invaders because that's the only team who makes an appearance. I'd love to chalk it up to scene-setting, but that's not it, because there's really very little setup to speak of. The Invaders are transported to the future. There's a fight. To be continued. It's all a little maddening in its refusal to explain exactly why a book like this needs to exist, and specifically why it needs twelve installments if the first one isn't going to cover very much ground.
In essence, Avengers/Invaders #1 is the sort of thing you know you'll dig before you even open the first issue. As a fan who's thoroughly preoccupied with the late '80s Marvel and later, this sort of thing doesn't exactly push my buttons in any noticeable way. Flip through it and see if it catches your interest, but just be aware that this first issue probably won't drum up much enthusiasm that's not already there.
Review Score: 7.0 Decent