Comic book reviews: Avengers Vol. 3 and Fear Itself- Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Avenger Vol. 3
Collecting Avengers #18-24 by Brian Michael Bendis and art by Daniel Acuna, Renato Guedes and Brandon Peterson.
Norman Osborn is freed from prison by a bunch of H.A.M.M.E.R. loyalists and has teamed up with A.I.M., HYDRA and the Hand in an attempt to get revenge of the Avengers. He does this by sowing distrust in the general public. Yeah, like that's going to be difficult. There's also a bunch of HYDRA grunts with the powers of the Avengers. Captain America decides to recruit some heavy firepower to help fight Osborn, so he chooses Storm of the X-Men and a newly rebuilt Vision.
This was a pretty okay book. The art wasn't too bad either. No great shakes, but at least it didn't make my eyes bleed.
Fans of the Avengers movie will be pleased to see that Hawkeye is featured, although he's changed from his usual purple outfit to a more movie-friendly get up. He's also dating Spider-Woman for some reason.
My favourite moment from a fairly mediocre book was the rebuilt Vision greeting the team. Particularly his surprise at the presence of the Red Hulk. Tony Stark just shrugs it off and says 'Yeah, there's a Red Hulk now'.
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force/The Deep
Collecting Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #1-3 by Rob Williams and art by Simone Bianchi, and Fear Itself: The Deep #1-4 by Cullen Bunn and art by Lee Garbett.
The Red Skull's daughter Sin has released the serpent, the Asgardian God of Fear. Fear and chaos have been unleashed upon the world, as seven hammers fell to Earth, endowing several individuals with great power. These newly-empowered individuals set out upon a campaign of destruction across the planet.
Believing the chaos as the sign of God, the mutant-hating Purifiers launch an attack of their own, engineering a mass suicide of innocent humans. Wolverine's team of killers set out to stop the Purifiers, mostly by shooting and stabbing them a lot.
I usually enjoy Uncanny X-Force, because who wouldn't love a team that lets Deadpool join? Deadpool is pretty much the highlight of the team. He does his usual bit of making the funny, but everybody else takes things incredibly seriously. Everything else is pretty unremarkable. Wolverine does his usual stabby-stabby business and that's about it. Not too impressed with the art even the usually beautiful Psylocke looks like a munter. Bad show, Marvel. Psylocke is one of the prettiest women in the Marvel Universe, but here she just looks horrible.
Namor the Sub-Mariner also has his own trouble with the trouble wrought by the hammer-wielding villains. His old enemy Attuma was one of those chosen to wield a hammer. Attuma wrests control of Atlantis from Namor, forcing him to seek help from his old friend Dr. Strange. The Silver Surfer and Lyra, the Savage She-Hulk also appear. Lyra's the daughter of the Incredible Hulk from an alternate reality or somesuch.
I much preferred this to the otherwise boring Uncanny X-Force story. I don't usually like Namor, I always thought he was an arrogant dick. I was surprised to see that Dr. Strange had developed a sense of humour from somewhere. Since when did that happen? When did Dr. Strange become funny? The art was much better too.
Next time: Fear Itself- Wolverine/New Mutants. More stabby-stabby mayhem with Wolverine and the New Mutants go to Hell.