Monday, January 15, 2018

Avengers #675 Review - Marvel Monday


Avengers #675


Writer: Mark Waid, Al Ewing, Jim Zub
Art Team: Pepe Larraz, David Curiel
Marvel Comics
Release Date:
Cover Price: $4.99



Weekly Avengers ... Very Weakly.

Well here we go fellow Marvel Zombies, we’re all diving headlong into a 16 issue weekly Avengers crossover, where God knows what is going to happen, but one thing I bet you can count on, is shit hitting the fan. It goes without saying the Avengers lineup of late, mostly since Secret Wars ended, has been a bit diluted and directionless, so does this make an effort to get things back on track? Let see.


Our issue beings in Texas with a card game going wrong , involving a long forgotten hero (the first of two in this title) undercover. The Living Lightning, mixes it up with a few small time Texas criminals, and takes them out quickly with a blast, then waits for the cops to arrive …. one of whom he’s possibly going to Netflix and Chill with a little later on. All the sudden, Lightning as he likes to be called now, seems to be the first to notice, in this issue, the skies are turning RED in the Marvel U … which means bad shit for the DC U, so probably isn't a good sign here either.


Up Next: we check in on New York City, and Avengers leader Flacon, who also notices the red skies and some strange happenings going on around him, which apparently seem to include cars flying through the air, for you know reasons. Falcon, does what he can to start saving the citizens, caught in this currently unexplained disaster, before we get updates from other Avengers teams around the globe, where shit seems to be going wrong everywhere, in slightly different ways.


Captain Marvel chimes in with the first real development of the issue, when from her Alpha Flight position in space, she notices the EARTH is not in its usual location of the solar system.


Someone, it seems, has stolen the Marvel Universe. This is the point as well, members of the team also start falling in and out of communication without satellites, around the now misplaced Earth. These communication issues however seems to come and go throughout the issue so Im not clear how thats all really working to be honest.


From here we check in on more members of the different Avengers teams trying to get to the bottom of their sudden problems occuring everywhere. There’s not much of note that occurs here throughout the issue other than Avengers team members saving random citizens. Jarvis does his part as well but ends up in a bad spot when some falling debris comes down on top of the Avengers butler injuring him in front of Wasp.


We’re at about the halfway point now and the Avengers continue fighting out; this time on the West Coast, where they’re trying to battle an incoming Tidal Wave ….Possibly due to Johnny Storms issues with his powers, he gets knocked out of the sky when he overextends himself, but seems to at least have an effect on all the water incoming.


In New Mexico Hawkeye and Red Wolf look for survivors of what looks to be an Earthquake in the area its hard to keep track of all this destruction. Meanwhile the US Avengers in Italy attempt to stop a Volcano from erupting, ultimately putting a dome around the problem, to stop it for now.


So basically various teams are having successes/failures depending on the situation they’re dealing with. Once the Italy situation seems under control the US Avengers, notice something dropping from the sky, and go investigate.


Washington DC, brings us to the side of Captain America who seems to be the first, of what will soon be many heroes and villains, that get frozen in time/place very mysteriously all over the world …. seemingly at the same time this mystery comet appeared.


An “Attention All Avengers” call is put out Assembling the heroes left around the globe.They gather to try and deduce what the hell is going on as Wasp drops the news about Jarvis. Rouge states we can't prioritize Jarvis over the lives of 7 billion people, and figuring out their dilemma, which angers Wasp who’s basically acts like a giant moron, which all eventually leads to the cliffhanger ….. The new long lost and forgotten about (to the fans not the characters) Avenger, Voyager.


I'm going to be honest here; I didn't like this issue very much, and I don't think it was anywhere near worth a $5 price tag, which feels mostly due to the fancy cover you get.


I'm an action issue fan but this thirty pages can be boiled down a bunch of random action Im not invested in because it comes out of nowhere and leads to basically 3 main things happening that are not of much interest to me.


The random acts and disasters that start occurring all over the world, which the Avengers deal with, feels like a way overdone way to begin an event comic and comes off too much like Bryan Hitch’s Justice League for me to enjoy it. Stuff happens, people get frozen, a mystery guest appears it’s all just basic and random. This issue just did nothing to hook me personally and was a poor introduction to get me to spend the rest of the money necessary (a minimum of $60 in total) to BUY and be invested this book.


Bits and Pieces

The art looks great, has a classic Marvel feel to it almost, and if this was 3.99 I'd say go for it for it based on that alone. But the classic characters I want to see aren't here, and if we’re following the characters on the last splash page, that I haven't cared much about since All New All Different kicked off, I’m leaning towards just being out on this altogether, and I'll read a Wiki when it's all over with to see what happened and why. Wake me up when things go back to normal again … that's the point Im at with some of this Marvel stuff right now, that's not a focused solo adventure I’m already enjoying. I’ll be saving my money for Infinity personally, which will be the Marvel event Im focused on, until I see what’s next, because for Marvel, much like Winter in Game of Thrones, a relaunch is coming.


6.0/10

2 comments:

  1. Given that Avengers: NO Surrender was actually written last year, the reality is that the story will involve all of the C and D-list Avenger characters. There's a lot of them. Most of the characters in the opening issue I know very little about and so it is hard to feel invested. And the first three pages were a huge mis-fire. Why have the opening three pages focused on a complete no-name character? Seriously, who the heck is "Lightning" and why is he in an "Event" Avengers comic? Sadly, the fact that he is in the opening three pages suggests that he will be in the final three pages. Remember that the character "BARF" was in the opening of Secret Empire and also in the last few pages of that series too.
    The intent of Avengers: NO Surrender appears to be focused on the NEW, NO NAME, UNCOMMON characters at precisely the time when Marvel needs to focus on the old classic characters. Since this story was written almost a full year ago and has been planned since then, it is not possible for Marvel to basically scrap it and re-do it with more popular characters.

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    1. Ya I dont think Im asking them to redo anything here, maybe I did Ill re-read what I wrote I guess, but it boils down to the book being just not that much above slightly average superhero fare, featuring characters I dont care for much, so Im just not down with it. Like I said Im stashing my Marvel cash away for Infinity where I can follow characters I have more of a connection to.

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