Avengers Academy #28

What a fun idea, to put the Runaways trade dress on the border of this issue. It makes sense, too, there has to be a fair amount of Runaways fans desperate for some appearances from the team. It’s pretty hard to get regular doses of the characters these days.

I think Christos Gage knows that, because I feel like he skewed a bit towards the Runaways in this storyline. Certainly most of the students in the Academy took a backseat, leaving Giant Man and Tigra as the main Avengers with speaking roles. I’m OK with that, I don’t get enough of those two anyway, but it did seem odd hearing so much from supposed guest stars.

The actual plot in this is pretty thin. The teams return to the present after rescuing Chase’s pet raptor Old Lace; then it’s time to decide what to do about the younger Runaways. Nico whips out a spell that lets the heroes see each others’ points of view, and while nice, I’m not sure it added a lot to anyone’s character. I like that both teams split up and just return to their status quo, too. Let’s face it, we all knew Molly wasn’t going to join the Academy and leave her team.

It does give me a weird feeling, reading Christos Gage’s entertaining Marvel comics. It almost feels like fan fiction, with his characters responding and adding to the current goings on in the Marvel U. But I can’t remember the last time anything in Avengers Academy actually affected anything outside its own pages. It’s clear that Gage is responding to storylines masterminded by Bendis, Jason Aaron, and other big names. I actually enjoy Gage’s work more, in most cases, so it sort of stinks seeing him try to make lemonade out of the lemons of the bigger Marvel storylines.

Karl Moline’s artwork is a lot more rushed that last month. The faces are stretched and at times the figures seem unfinished. The story is clear, but very sketchy.

Fair