Marvel Comics is not in a good place right now. They’ve been taken from the top of the sales charts, fans are generally unhappy with the majority of their books, and it honestly feels like DC is the House of Ideas and Marvel’s just trying to coast on being Marvel while putting out the worst stories they have in a long time. The Avengers are endemic of all of Marvel’s problems. The team has been consistently written and drawn by A-listers, yet there hasn’t been a legitimately interesting Avengers book in over a decade (Avengers Inc. was great, but none of you bought it, so we were robbed of something that could have been amazing). However, it looks like that might be about to change and Avengers: Armageddon is the start of that shift.
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Chip Zdarsky, probably Marvel’s most consistently great writer right now, teams with Delio Diaz and Frank Alpizar for this new series with major implications for the Marvel Universe. While a lot of the stuff in this issue is old hat, there’s an energy and excitement to the book that makes up for that. Armageddon is shaping up to be something special and this issue does a fantastic job of continuing its build.
Rating: 4 out of 5
| Pros | Cons |
| Zdarsky nails this first issue, setting up all the pieces beautifully | You’ve read this Marvel story before a million times, which is one of the publisher’s main problems right now |
| The art from Diaz and Alpizar has a Steve McNiven feel that really fits the book’s more realistic tone | |
| More David Colton is better than less David Colton |
Zdarsky Takes a Story You’ve Read Before and Makes It Interesting Again
This issue is one of the best Marvel things I’ve read in a while that didn’t come out of Immortal Thor/Mortal Thor, Uncanny X-Men, or Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon, but there’s nothing really new in this book. This is your standard “Marvel heroes disregard the governments of the world to go and fight the bad guy” plot, so if you walked into the comic story today and expected this to give you something new, you’re going to be disappointed. Marvel is allergic to new ideas lately; the best you can hope for is the creators make the staid concepts they keep reusing fun again. Luckily, that’s basically Zdarsky’s stock in trade.
I’ve said it before, but making Red Hulk the main villain of this book and an actual force in the world is a great idea. Zdarsky nails Ross, a man who would definitely hate what the world has become and want to use his power to change it. The new UN Secretary-General Renata Riani is basically just a woman Henry Peter Gyrich with more power, which is fun, and it will be interesting to see how she’s developed. The book’s characterization and pacing are all great (I love Zdarsky’s Wolverine; we could have gotten peak but instead, Brevoort gave us Ah-mid book instead) and I’m definitely excited to see where it’s all going to go, even if I can kind of guess already. There’s an energy to the book, a propulsion to the plot that Marvel has been missing. I hate modern Marvel events and skip most of them, but I won’t be skipping this one.
Diaz and Alpizar Knock the Art Out of the Park
Marvel’s writing has not been great lately and their recent track record with art on major books (why did they put an artist who barely drew comics before on X-Men United, a supposed flagship book?) isn’t exactly sterling. Marvel has always been bad about paying people unless their name was Stan Lee, but lately they’ve been going for the cheapest artists possible any time they can get away with it. It rarely pays off. Diaz and Alpizar aren’t A-listers, but after this issue, it’s obvious they have the goods.
I got major ’00s McNiven vibes form their art in this issue and that’s a very good thing. This is a book that needs to have a more realistic style of art to fit the tone and plot, and they deliver. Their detail never flags at all, their character acting is outstanding, and the action looks fantastic. I especially love the faces of the characters; they really nail them throughout the issue. I was nervous about the art in this book – I’ve been burned by Marvel’s frugality a lot lately – but they delivered.
Marvel events can be misses and the publisher has had more misses than hits lately. I was honestly really trepidatious about this comic, more so than Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon, but luckily this book delivers. The creative team isn’t telling anything approaching a new story, but they do that thing that comics should always do – present old ideas in entertaining new ways. Avengers: Armageddon #1 has the goods.
Avengers: Armageddon #1 is on sale now.
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