Review: Avengers Inc #1
Avengers Inc #1 Al Ewing (writer), Leonard Kirk (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), VC's Cory Petit (letterer).
Rating 7/10
You know the Avengers: costumed superheroes with cosmic powers, magic powers and mutant abilities responding to global catastrophes. Well, Avengers Inc. is something different.
Captain America is leading the combination of X-Men and classic Avengers in an off-the-record team (see the new Uncanny Avengers title). Meanwhile, Janet Van Dyne is taking centre stage in a New York mayor sanctioned murder investigation, with a twist.
Six supervillains are killed under mysterious circumstances within moments of one another while under lock and key in The Raft (the Maximum Security penitentiary for superhuman offenders). Mayor Luke Cage asks Janet Van Dyne to look into the deaths, getting her interested by telling her one of the villains is a supervillain she put in the Raft, Whirlwind. Cage’s only stipulation is a strictly ‘no costume’ policy. Popular opinion is not looking favourably on costumed superheroes in New York at this point.
What starts as a noir crime story with a classic locked room mystery becomes something else when the supposedly dead supervillains come back to life. And let’s be honest, supervillains or heroes, coming back to life doesn’t seem all that unexpected.
For Janet Van Dyne the situation is going to get ugly really quickly. She is alone, in the Raft’s infirmary with no back-up. She is facing five confused supervillains who have just realized they have a good chance of escaping. Admittedly you probably haven’t heard of Quicksand, Icemaster, Piledriver, Anaconda or Griffin before. I hadn’t. But transforming into sand, ice powers, strength, stretching powers and animal ferocity are a good collection of problems for a single Avenger.
The only exception is Whirlwind.
The whole issue starts with a 1960s, Jessica Fletcher atmosphere (with the presence of supervillains) but shifts gears to give us the big reveal of a surprising and uncertain ally in the form of Janet Van Dyne’s nemesis. We get a crime driven plot that ultimately gives way to a suggestion of a larger conspiracy that is going to be investigated by an unlikely duo. One of which will need to actually discover how they actually exist.
Avengers Inc. issue #1 is a solid start. The tone and style are good and it sets up a good premise while also deliver a couple of surprises and good bit of action.
8 out 10
NeuroMyths enjoys reading comics and did not receive this comic for review purposes, but will be looking for issue #2.