Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman and Matt Fraction: story
Brian Michael Bendis: script
John Romita, Jr.: pencils
Scott Hanna: inks
The Solicitation
• It’s No Longer Coming—It’s Here!
• Does The Return Of The Phoenix To Earth Signal The Rebirth Of The Mutant Species? That’s What The X-Men Believe!
• Unfortunately, The Avengers Are Convinced That Its Coming Will Mean The End Of All Life On Earth!
• The Stage Is Set For The Ultimate Marvel Showdown In This Oversized First Issue!
Preview
The Story
Since I said it before in a previous review of Winter Soldier #1, let's paste it here:
What what what? Is this a Marvel comic? Indeed it is, true believer. I decided to pick up a couple of #1s from Marvel to get a taste for how things have been since my last Marvel comic that I picked up. To give you an idea of how long it has been since I last danced the marvel dance, I picked up Morrison's X-Men run, got some old Garth Ennis Punisher hardcovers, and got about halfway through Brubaker's run on Daredevil. The last X-men comic I picked up was Warren Ellis' first issue on Astonishing X-men, and I think I caught the beginning of Bendis' run on Avengers with the House of M crossover. So yea, its been a little bit.
I have been keeping up with some random interviews with Marvel creators over the years, and have heard all the big controversial story lines. A couple of years ago I did get a month's subscription to Marvel's Digital Comics and caught up on a lot of books at that time. Beyond that, I am essentially coming into this comic as a new reader. So just like the DC #1s, there are going to be some certain expectations that I will need in order to keep the comic coming each month.
With that in mind, let's go for the comic and the review of it.
And so we do. And I must say, as a lapsed reader with all things Marvel, this book just drops the ball with catching me up. It's shiny, it's pretty, but in the end it is something that Marvel fans will love and new readers will be excited, but ultimately a lot of catching up and clarification will be needed. And this comic better do it quick.
Four pages in, and I have read only one word outside of the credits. What I know as the Phoenix just torched some far side of a planet and is traveling through space. I know it's the Phoenix, old readers know it's the Phoenix, but I don't think a new reader would get that. Yet.
The next nine pages takes its time telling us that the Avengers are just hanging around with nothing to do. But they can assemble! This comet looking thing has hit a plane that takes out a building, that the Avengers catch and prevent and deaths from happening. The comet crashes and the Avengers run to find Nova! Who is Nova!? I don't know. Seriously, I really don't have much of a clue about Nova besides the fact that he is some cosmic guy. And that is all I apparently need to know. Either he is dead or he is just passed out. And he just says that "it" is coming.
Next we get to meet Hope and Cyclops over at Utopia, the island home of the X-men. Its been a bit since I last checked in with the X-Men, but I know that Hope is supposed to be some sort of mutant messiah. But last I knew she was some kid. Ignoring all that back history I know, we basically see Cyclops "training" Hope for some reason, and I mean hardcore training her. Then I wonder if Cyclops is evil or something because Magneto is on this island.
The thought gets interrupted when that bird thing, the Phoenix, makes its appearance again when Hope starts to yell. At this point we have reached the staples of the comic, meaning the middle of the issue, and I have seen so very, very few words here. A little clarification would be nice to have right about now. I'd even settle for little character boxes when we first see a character that would have their name and maybe their powers or something, sorta like how Utopia was introduced. Yes, there was a nice character chart in the beginning of the book with the names of the characters, but nothing about powers, skill sets, etc.
Why is the Phoenix with Hope? Apparently because she is a red head. But never mind the details, let's jump to the next scene! Which is a good thing, because now things get all talky. We get the back story of the message that Nova delivered and find out he is in a coma. And then we learn what the Phoenix is and how it is connected to Jean Grey of the X-men. Coolness. Iron Man then says that the Phoenix needs a biological host to lay waste to the environment. Which is a tad weird, because it looked like it layed waste to the planet it was passing by or on in the first four pages, and it didn't look like it had a host or anything. I guess we are to assume that there was one.
Then the Phoenix flares up, which I assume is the Hope thing a few pages back, and the Avengers are going to head out and find where the flare happened. Before they can do that, they stop by the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to talk with Wolverine. Which makes me wonder why there is a school, what happened to Wolverine and Cyclops, why Cyclops is more of an ass then normal when training Hope, when does Wolverine have time to be a part of this school, and much more questions that I am going to need Wikipedia to help me catch up on all this stuff.
We then go back to Utopia where Scott is meeting with some other X-men. Apparently Colossus is bald now. and Magneto is a voice of reason here. Something has happened to the X-men, and I'm not sure what exactly. Then Captain America drops by to pick up Hope, and he is hoping to talk to Cyclops about it. Basically the argument boils down to the fact that Cap wants Hope and thinks that the Avengers are the best way to handle the Phoenix force when it gets to earth, and Cyclops thinks the opposite. So Cyclops shoots Captain America with his eye beam. Captain America responds with "Avengers Assemble."
That eye blast was a two page spread, and the Avengers arriving in a huge plane is a two page spread. Then we cut to Hope and the Phoenix showing up in her eyes. And we see Scott yell, even though the speech bubble looks like one of those "I'm speaking via telepathically" looks to them.
A comic for new readers, this is definitely not. A comic for Avengers fans? I guess. A comic for X-men fans? I guess. I just don't know enough about what is going on in either series to really get much of a grasp as to what is going on with these characters. And remember, it took the five best writers for Marvel to come up with this idea. And this was Brian Bendis taking the main writing duties on the first issue, which is weird to me because I always knew his comics to be talky talky talky back in the day. Where did that go?
Face it, the premise for this book decided to wait until the second half to get things going. If the idea behind this book is to try and get people to read Marvel comics again, then for me it has failed. Over priced, under told, and it just didn't have the excitement I want out of a comic. If this was aimed as a Michael Bay there is no need to care about the story let's just see some action type of story, then it hit its mark. But then why did it need five writers behind this idea?
And how come none of them thought of the fact that Magneto could simply crush the ship the Avengers came on? Unless he has had his powers messed with and he is de-powered in some way. Which he probably is as that tends to happen to him ever other year.
The Art
John Romita Jr knows his shit. Seriously. I have high praise for it, there has been a consistency for it and it shows throughout this issue. My one complaint is about those stupid "AR" stamps all over the place. They take away from the art and are distracting. They are supposed to be an Augmented Reality that you should be able to wave your smartphone over in order to get some behind the scenes stuff and bonus features.
Personally, I don't care for the digital stuff presented like that in the middle of the comic. It takes away from it. Its sorta like watching a movie on Blue-Ray for the first time and you have all the bonus behinds the scenes stuff playing over the movie. Or the commentary track going - but that comparison may be a little off with the audio track. More if they had an icon pop up every time a storyboard was going to be shown for the scene. Its distracting, this is the first time you are seeing the movie, why would you care about how it is made before you view it and try to take in the movie viewing experience?
The Cover
The logo at the top looks cool, I will give it that. And we have a pretty standard type of cover that I got with the heroes about to fight each other. This type of cover has been done before and will be done again. I don't like it much because the cover feels crowded.
Grades
Words: 5/10 - Way too much felt left out of the comic for me. If this was something that someone lent to me as a trade later on, then I might give it a whirl. This is not something I would continue to get on my own.
Pictures: 8/10
Recommend: If you are already a big X-men or Avengers fan of the current books, then maybe this one is for you. But for me, it just isn't happening.
Buy Next Issue: Nah. I'll read the summaries and spoilers that other web sites are sure to publish at some point.
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