Nick Spencer: props. Props for actually understanding how
Hawkeye is supposed to work. He’s on a black ops team. They’ve got specific
orders to kill the Scientist Supreme. And Hawkeye just won’t play along. He’ll
go on the mission, but the first chance he gets he blows his cover to save
Black Widow, just the kind of choice an Avenger should make.
What makes the interaction more fun is the varied response
from Hawkeye’s teammates. Black Widow knows Clint and just goes along, figuring
it is not a big deal; she’ll take care of it herself. Nick Fury Jr. is insulted
that Hawkeye can just consider himself “above” killing. Fury is a soldier, not
a super hero, and he has no qualms about taking out the target.
Jim Rhodes is getting a lot of respect in these pages, which
is nice to see. He’s a senior hero and the best example of a good soldier/hero
in comics, so I liked seeing him take ownership of a role he was meant for. I
think Marvel might just be maneuvering him into the Iron Patriot armor, though.
Spencer has some nice interplay between the core team and backup
players Mockingbird and Taskmaster, but I still found myself unsatisfied while
reading this book. When you’ve got AIM’s super-villain team of bosses that
includes the evil Black Widow, Mentallo, Taskmaster, and Graviton, I WANT TO
SEE THOSE VILLAINS. Instead, there are an amazing number of pages dedicated to
Maria Hill and some random UN dudes talking about who should be in charge of
SHIELD.
Honestly, maybe it is just me. Is this what people want from
their Avengers comics? Or their SHIELD comics?
Luke Ross’ pencils are as dynamic as ever. I found myself
really impressed at his faces for Daisy Johnson and Maria Hill until I realized
they were just about the same. I also recognize how well Ross draws the Super
Soldier costume on Fury Jr. and Black Widow in her suit. Imagine if he was
drawing Hawkeye’s real costume? Or we actually saw those villains in more than
a panel each?
This is another comic where I love the cast, I love the
villains, and the writing is competent, but the pacing and the actual story on the
pages is lacking. It is like the comic book industry is TRYING to spend time on
the boring stuff between fights. Any media can do talky and stand around. Only
comics can bring an insane level of action on every page.
(I should note that I don’t NEED insane action every page,
but I need more than is in this FAIR comic.)
2 comments:
I gave up on this comic after 2 issues. I do wonder if the re-launch with Ales Kot (who came in on this current run and apparently punched it up a bit) will be more enjoyable.
Later in the series there seems to be more going on with Mockingbird, making this a primo candidate for me to keep up with on Marvel Unlimited!
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