written by Jason Aaron
drawn by Ed McGuinness (p), Mark Morales (i)
colored by David Curiel
Marvel's premier super team gets a makeover and a brand new issue #1 just in time for their record-breaking new movie. Marvel's dead serious about selling this one; they've put superstar creators Jason Aaron (Thor) and Ed McGuinness (Spider-Man/Deadpool) on it.
The super-sized story begins with a flashback to a million years ago, in which the Avengers consisting of Odin and pre-historic versions of the Hulk, Phoenix, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider and Iron Fist come face-to-face with the "First Host" of the star-spanning god-like giants known as the Celestials. A million years later, Avengers mainstays Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man and Thor Odinson gather around drinks as they contemplate bringing the Avengers back together, while elsewhere, T'Challa a.k.a. Black Panther and Doctor Stephen Strange investigate mysterious energy signatures two miles underneath South Africa, Jennifer Walters tries to keep from turning into She-Hulk, Robbie Reyes a.k.a. Ghost Rider finds himself facing a pretty alarming threat, and Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel stumbles upon something very big falling from a portal in space. As the original three Avengers join in the effort to rein in the chaos, they come face-to-face with what could very well be the greatest threat to humanity that they've ever seen.
If Marvel's intention was to face their cash cow heroes with a truly big threat to the world, they could not possibly have gotten any bigger than the Celestials, and so the stakes appear to be suitably high. I was kind of annoyed though, that Thor had to explain who the Celestials were (though I imagine it was for the readers' benefit) to Iron Man and Cap considering that they've been around since the seventies at the very latest, and Iron Man himself had a prominent starring role in Neil Gaiman's and John Romita Jr.'s Eternals miniseries, which featured a two-mile high Celestial emerging in San Francisco, to which Tony himself was personally witness. Well, maybe Cap's never seen them before, so I'll forgive Aaron that bit of exposition. Apart from that, Aaron does a pretty good job of setting the stage for a pretty involving story, with a prologue and various story threads involving different characters that will inevitably come together in the next two or three issues. While I've never been a fan of "decompression" in storytelling, I think Aaron's pacing justifies this approach here, if only just, and it's also nice to have any excuse for multiple issues of Ed McGuiness art.
Speaking of McGuinness, he is, as he was on his last regular gig, Spider-Man/Deadpool, the star of the show, and his take on old favorites like Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther and Captain Marvel really hit the spot. I also liked his distinctly Kirby-esque rendering of the Celestials, and I will be happy to have my McGuinness fix for at least the next six issues. I would have preferred his usual colorist Jason Keith, but that's really a minor point.
All told, this was a good, solid start for yet another relaunch of Marvel's flagship book.
8.5/10
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