Everybody Wants to Be the King: ANAD Avengers #13 Review

Going into ANAD Avengers #13, I was unsure what to expect. Civil War II hasn’t exactly been a great crossover event, and ANAD Avengers hasn’t exactly been a great comic. What I was somehow hoping was that the fusion of the two might produce something interesting that would be greater than the sum of its parts.

Well, I certainly got interesting, though it has basically nothing to do with either Civil War II or the Avengers. What I ended up reading felt like Waid’s attempt at writing an issue of Tom King’s excellent Vision series.

Although he's taking it a bit far with the narration boxes.

Like the Tom King series, much of the story is told through narration, complete with ominous foreshadowing every few pages. It is somewhat more dynamic though, with a lot more action, and a more diverse setting than a simple suburban neighborhood. This is reflected in Adam Kubert’s fantastically detailed and well-shaded art, a very welcome break from the last several issues.

The basic plot resembles, of all things, the first season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, as Vision jumps though time to track down and stop Kang the Conqueror before his rise to power (and, on a more personal level, before he can hack Vision and make him attack his teammates).

So a time machine has been in Peter Parker's company HQ all this time. Okay.

As far as Civil War II goes, all we get is a brief conversation Vision has with Ulysses on the morality of killing baby Hitler. The exchange provides no response to that question, though it explains his powers don’t work that way. So, basically it's just there to get that logo on the cover.

Vision knows better than to get dragged into that mess.

The story ends on a strangely ambiguous note for a solo, standalone issue. Vision is whispered to by one of the strange shadowy creatures who have been following him through time, and whatever is said to him causes him to kidnap baby Kang rather than kill him, and all the while the narration promises the Avengers will feel the resonance of his decision in years to come.

And, that’s it. Can I just mention, for a moment, how tired I am of game changing whispers that we don’t get to hear? It happened with the Odinson formerly known as Thor a few years ago, and we still don’t know what Fury said to him. And now, whatever it turned out to be, if we ever find out, will be inevitably disappointing. The same applies here.

Rant over, sorry.

Overall, while this was a vast improvement over the issues preceding it, it’s really hard to call it an Avengers comic. At this point though, I’ll take anything to salvage this series, even if it is destroying the premise.