Saturday, November 5, 2016

I Didn't Plan on Buying The Avengers #1 But I Had To And Now I'm Glad I Did

As you may have figured out, I'm primarily an X-Men guy. On the DC side I read Batman and Wonder Woman, but most of the Marvel titles on my pull list are X-Men related. I don't think I've bought an Avengers book since Remender was writing Uncanny Avengers. Having said that, I always get hooked by great cover art. So today as I was picking up my books from Twilite Zone Comics, I see this book out of the corner of my eye and it starts screaming, "Buy me!"

The reasons are pretty clear just from the cover.

1. It's obviously an Alex Ross cover and it doesn't get much better.  If Alex Ross wanted to make millions, he should turn his art into wallpaper so that comic book nerds could paste it all over their houses.

2. Mark Waid is writing it. His Fantastic Four run is considered one of the best ever and his writing on Daredevil won him both an Eisner and a Harvey. Need I say more?

3. Mike del Mundo art. I can't explain how much I love this guy's artwork. His cover art for the 2013 X-Men Legacy series is mind boggling (it also won him an Eisner).  If I had a spare wall for artwork (my wife only allows me to decorate my office), I'd frame every cover of that series and put it in a grid from floor to ceiling.

4. Spider-Man: okay. Captain America: it's Avengers, right. Wasp: sure. Thor: fine. Vision: that's cool. HOLY SHIT! Is that Hercules back in the Avengers!?  I couldn't be more happy.  Hercules needs this. He can be such a great character.  Dan Abnett just gave us six wonderful issues making him more than just a drunken oaf with big muscles. I hope Waid makes him a contributor instead of just the muscle.

If those weren't enough reasons, after reading it I can tell you that this initial issue has a great hook involving Kang the Conqueror. Waid does a great job of mixing the formation of the new team (though we still don't know how Civil War II ends) and the introduction of the story thread for the first arc. The pacing is perfect. Maybe that's Waid's script or del Mundo's layouts but it works seamlessly.

Mike del Mundo's artwork is amazing as usual. Based on this book, I'm not sure anyone else should be allowed to draw and color someone changing size unless they've taken lessons from del Mundo.


See what I mean?  Here's another.


The only unfortunate is that this issue was $4.99 though it is oversized. 34 pages I think. I'm assuming the price is because of the #1. At $3.99 for future issues, this series just got added to my pull list.


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