Comic Review - Heroes Return Part 2: The Avengers #1-5

Alongside Jim Lee's Wildstorm the other Image studio to land work on Heroes Reborn was Rob Liefield's Awesome studios, who handled The Avengers and Captain America. Before the reboot The Avengers wasn't actually in particularly rude health, due to Marvel's habit for much of the nineties of spreading the big names out among their solo books more, leaving the title with a weak roster and the big guns featuring almost as guest stars. This was partly rectified in the closing issues as much to bring the characters intended to 'die' in the Onslaught event together but the last thirty of forty issues of the first volume are basically no-one's favourite run of Avengers issues.

As such the Heroes Reborn title had the advantage of unfettered access to the mainstays of the team. Liefield and Loeb came up with an interesting set-up, with the team being a SHIELD-controlled unit based on an island off Manhattan - more than a little like the later much better regarded Ultimates, which just goes to show how easy it is to make a mess of a decent concept. Captain America is head of the team, something which ties into his solo title (the events of this book taking place later than those in that book); joining him on the field roster are the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, the Swordsman and Hellcat. Hank Pym meanwhile is tech support, having built the Vision and working on Ultron on the island, with wife Jan also  non-combat personnel. Thor meanwhile is found frozen in ice in the first issue (a clear flip of Cap's Silver Age introduction) while within a couple of issues Pym experiments with being Ant-Man. Iron Man is kept separate for the time being in his own title, thankfully.

It's not a roster without promise, notably the addition of the Swordsman and Hellcat - and not just as cannon fodder, though sadly they have Peak Liefield redesigns; the Swordsman has a weird bowl-cut that stops just north of his ears, a vaguely Japanese outfit and is incapable of going anywhere without 27 swords strapped to his back because obviously if you're the world's best swordsman you're going to lose swords left, right and centre and need to carry loads of spares; Hellcat on the other hand is just Feral from X-Force, all weird vertical hair and Swimsuit Illustrated poses with the underscoring feeling that Rob actually thinks the result is pretty damn hot. Sadly under Loeb & Liefield any potential is fumbled to a few broad character strokes - Cap is deeply distrustful of SHIELD; the Vision is struggling to learn about humanity like Data off Star Trek; Hawkeye is a Rebel Who Doesn't Like Orders; the Swordsman is a preening poser who is secretly unsure of what he contributes, the Scarlet Witch is inexperienced and falls in love with basically everyone male, Thor awakens with the morals of an actual Norse God. 

Some of these character sketches have potential but they're dropped into a crazy helter-skelter of a plot as Loki, the Enchantress, the Hulk and Kang are all thrown into the first five issues (The Avengers did double-time in the Industrial Revolution crossover) along with the brewing Ultron and Agatha Harkness. Unlike Loeb & Liefield's Captain America this does mean it has a bit of pace but it's too badly done to match the Fantastic Four's amiable Silver Age energy. There are still far too many splash pages and there's a weird dissonance in that the Avengers seem to be simultaneously a new and unproven team and well-known enough to attract media coverage and a key role in SHIELD. The team's relationships between each other are the same, the title acting like they've just met sometimes and have a full rundown on each other at other times. All of this is bad enough and then you've got Liefield's art, which isn't his worse but is still comfortably dreadful nonetheless.

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