Every month, I read the latest issue of ANAD Avengers in the
hopes that maybe, maybe the series
will have miraculously improved. And every month, I remain disappointed.
And the worst part is that I honestly can’t see why it’s all going so wrong. The team roster is excellent, and Mark Waid has shown he can be a really good writer with his work on things like Superman: Birthright and the Archie reboot.
And the worst part is that I honestly can’t see why it’s all going so wrong. The team roster is excellent, and Mark Waid has shown he can be a really good writer with his work on things like Superman: Birthright and the Archie reboot.
Anyway, #11 picks up
where the previous issue left off, with the Avengers in the trapped in the
Negative Zone, in the clutches of Annihilus. Spider-Man and Nova let Ms. Marvel
go through a whole inspiration speech to his other prisoners, before pointing
out they don’t speak English.
Jerks.
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| Will every Avengers review open with a badly drawn Kamala face? MAYBE!!! |
Meanwhile, Cap and Iron Man realize that the antimatter sun
is poisoning Vision, while elsewhere, Thor has been locked in battle with
Annihilus for hours, and in true supervillain fashion, he reveals his evil plan
to… build a giant cannon to destroy the universe. Because reasons.
 |
| "Let me just go back to my excellent solo series!" |
The younger Avengers manage to escape the mines, and they
meet up with the rest to help Thor with her fight. Stark recognizes the
Nega-Band Annihilus is wearing, and recalls a similar one on the planet they
were on earlier, realizing that a portal can be formed between the two of them.
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| "No, Nova. I AM YOUR FATHER!" |
So the new game plan is to get the band off Annihilus, and
they manage to do so by Stark fiddling around with Nova’s helmet and putting it
on Vision to restore him to his full strength, with which they are able to
succeed.
 |
| Kamala flying with Mjolnir in the last issue wasn't enough, they had to top that somehow |
Whoops.
 |
| "Oh, mention an iPhone somewhere in the issue, the youths will love it!" |
Now, I’m going to be brutally honest here. The plot is
mediocre. The art is mediocre. The characterization is mediocre. The dialogue
is mediocre. The villain is, you guessed it, mediocre. Literally the only
positive I can think of is that the cover art is as fantastic as ever.
I never thought I’d say this, but a Civil War II tie-in
might be exactly what this comic needs. Some compelling drama and character
division, no matter how forced, would be better than what we have right now.
Unfortunately, we’ve still got one more issue in this arc before that can
happen.
Oh, and whatever happened to that Wasp teamup the last issue set up, huh?
Aranwe Quirke is a totally real, definitely not made up name. No, you may not see the birth certificate.
