WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI, JEPH LOEB, SCOTT LOBDELL
ARTISTS: JIM LEE, ROB LIEFIELD, RYAN BENJAMIN
The sixth issue of each of the heroes reborn titles saw a crossover drawing all the characters together - although there had already been some overlap. So it's a bit of a damp squib anyway even before the scant content. The storyline tentatively starts in Fantastic Four #6 but really it concerns tidying up the whole Latveria Doctor Doom/Silver Surfer/Super Skrull storyline - including linking the four's powers to those of the surfer and the first glimpse of this universe's galactus. Then at the end they're alerted to a situation brewing at Avengers Island.
There the gamma reactor used for whatever the avengers need power for that requires a gamma reactor being built under a superhero base is going critical in their tussle with the Hulk. The Four and Iron Man head in to help - requiring Hawkeye and the Swordsman to be invalided out of the plot. Everyone meets up, speaks platitudes to each other and then Bruce Banner sacrifices himself (or likely not) for the second time in seven issues trying to save the ever-imperiled Eastern seaboard from gamma meltdown. Avengers Island still gets wasted but without any other casualties, the reactor being saved even if the team's base in trashed. Apart from maybe Hellcat, who Lobdell loses track of, and the Scarlet Witch, who's involved in some posession subplot that doesn't seem to be going anywhere good. And there's no mention of Hank Pym or the Vision either. There is a fleeting hallucination of Onslaught in the island's reactor, however, the first real glimpse that how the Heroes got where they are might be a plot point.
That just about stretches to filling Avengers #6 and Iron Man #6, so there's still Captain America's contribution. Occe again the dynamic team of Loeb and Liefield manage to drop the standard because most of it is a random battle aboard the SHIELD helicarrier between AIM, Modok and Zemo on one side with Cap and Cable on the other. Yeah, Cable, Liefield's creation from the main Marvel Universe turning up somehow thanks to time travel magic to big Cap up for 18 pages of awful splash pages while Bucky inexplicably tells everyone she just had a piss. Cable's snapped away at the end, realising the Heroes are still alive and needs to find out where. Which is a nice plot avenue that doesn't really ring true as it's hard to imagine Cable giving much of a toss about Iron Man or the Human Torch. The dialogue and actual plotting meanwhile are so bad; it's just a random fight scene with Cap spouting catchphrases about stopping Nazis like he's in a first gen licensed tie-in game while Cable creams at how inspiring he is. Oh and in the last couple of pages someone reminds him it's part of the crossover and the Avengers and Iron Man materialise in Nick Fury's office to tell him Tony Stark will be taking over the team. In a splash page.
Not only could this huge plot point have taken up page space otherwise used establishing that Bucky needs to read a sign to remind her to wash her hands after a slash but it also reverts much of the setup to pre-Onslaught formatting, making the first arcs of three of the books totally pointless. An apt summary for a poor crossover even on charitable relative terms.
No comments:
Post a Comment