Thursday, July 12, 2018

Earth's Mightiest Exposition: A Review of The Avengers #4

written by Jason Aaron
penciled by Paco Medina, Ed McGuinness
inked by Mark Morales,
colored by David Curiel

The Avengers go in search of a weapon that will help them stop the Dark Celestials, with Thor and She-Hulk traveling to Asgard to get Odin to spill secrets, and with Iron Man and Doctor Strange traveling to Olympia, the home of the Eternals, where a shocking sight awaits them. Meanwhile, Loki explains to the captive Captain America the unsettling truth behind the origins of humanity.

For a title that was supposed to "refresh" Marvel's most valuable intellectual property at the moment (as evidenced by the over $2 billion worldwide take of Avengers: Infinity War), this book sure is doing a poor job of it. Having squandered the first couple of issues on pointless action sequences involving Ghost Rider and a few gratuitous money shots, Jason Aaron plays catch up with his exposition here, and the pacing suffers for it. Oh, and I wasn't at all a fan of the off-panel deaths of a bunch of rather important characters who are actually being considered for their own feature film. I suppose it'll be undone fairly easily, but then, that just makes this story all the more disposable.

While Paco Medina, who takes the lead on art chores here, does a much better job than he did last issue, which he really seemed to rush out the door, I still found myself missing Ed McGuinness, who pops up on a select few pages.

Knowing Marvel, this first arc probably won't even really end the story it's telling, but let's wait and see what happens. If nothing else, I'll at least have David Marquez to get me through the next story arc (I hope).

5/10

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