Sunday, January 29, 2012

Avengers Prime TPB


This is pretty clearly unnecessary fluff, but boy is it pretty. Brian Michael Bendis isn’t my favorite Avengers writer, but he does a nice job with the whole reconciliation between the big three heroes after Siege. Iron Man and Cap in particular have some issues to work through, and putting them in a rough spot makes them patch things up quickly.

Bendis’ Iron Man is always a bit snotty, but he’s awesome in this. Constantly bantering and making light of the situation, I got more of a Robert Downy Jr. feel from this Iron Man than anything else Marvel has put out. And I liked it!

Captain America lands on his feet, of course. Not only does he immediately fit right into the fractured world of Asgard, but he also beats up a slew of dark elves and makes out with a hot sorceress. Cap’s got work to do! I enjoyed seeing him work through his anger at Iron Man too; Cap’s such a god guy, he just wants to move on.

This is really Thor’s story. The Enchantress and Hela play strong antagonistic roles, and Thor gets to pontificate mightily at them through the whole story. Thor also seems to be the one who can get past his mortal annoyances too. JMS wrote Thor a lot more moody and likely to carry a grudge, so I like this version more.

Alan Davis is the star of this book. His art is always stunning, and he really gets to flex his muscles here. He gets the “Steve Rogers: Super Soldier” look for Cap, but the Asgardian re-design looks mighty familiar, and Davis takes every opportunity to cast convenient shadows to make it seem like Cap’s in his real suit. Hela’s slight swings actually looks pretty great smashing against Thor, and that’s due to the inspiring design of the Twilight Sword.

And let’s not forget the two best parts of the book. The return of Fafnir the dragon and the revelation that Tony Stark loves attending D&D camps.

Good

1 comment:

Jeff said...

Agreed! Pretty fluff, which is mostly just back-clapping bromance. But man, it's drawn by Alan Davis. Can't go wrong there.