The Marvel Universe is flexible and can change tone depending on where the writer is looking to advance the source material. Celebrated Marvel writer Jason Aaron is returning for a crossover series referencing an older Marvel event of the same name entitled “Heroes Reborn.” Aaron is one of the most celebrated writers currently at the publisher so it feels natural for him to extend his talent towards a larger audience with this series. The premise behind the event is interesting as Aaron is imagining what the world would be like if there were no Avengers and The Squadron Supreme are Marvel’s premiere heroes.
Aaron and his numerous collaborators have been planting seeds of this story in their “Avengers” run for quite some time now. Aaron has been teasing the mastermind behind The Squadron Supreme for months as well. In addition to a weird event premise driving the story, Aaron has structured the main series as an event with character-focused lead stories. Of course, there are story threads that connect each chapter with the other in the second story. Artists Dale Keown, Carlos Magno, and Ed McGuinness are joining Aaron for the event. Join us as we recap our thoughts on the troubled second chapter of “Heroes Reborn.”
Written by Jason Aaron
Penciled by Dale Keown, Carlos Magno and Ed McGuinness
Inked by Scott Hanna, Carlos Magno and Mark Morales
Colored by Edgar Delgado and Matthew Wilson
Lettered by VC’s Cory PetitMake way for the adventures of Marvel’s Mightiest Megastar, the all-powerful Hyperion! When America’s solar-powered, super-sentinel of liberty looks to return his archenemy Victor Von Doom to the other-dimensional prison of the Negative Zone, mighty Hyperion must deal with a breakout of his most powerful enemies, such as Ultron, General Annihilus and the Immortal Hulk. Plus: A special backup tale starring Blade, Earth’s last living vampire.
Aaron’s recent works have seen the writer lean into the less organic and more bombastic style of writing. Aaron’s “Avengers” run showcased this style by rapidly introducing changes in continuity without exploring the nuances of the changes. The Avengers got new team members and headquarter locations. Aaron never gave himself the time to explore these ideas because he continued to introduce major changes at this rapid rate. Aaron’s Hulk is characterized by his brawns over-brain type of attitude that wears the reader down after a short period of time. Hyperion’s characterization is also thin. When Aaron introduces the dynamic with the Hulk and Hyperion, the lead story falls into a boring, combat-oriented direction.
If readers don’t have a strong emotional tie to Hyperion they will not be invested in the contrived set of reasons why he is battling the Hulk. The structure of the story in “Heroes Reborn” #2 is also tricky for an event as Marvel is attempting to reboot the Marvel characters in a dark version of our reality. This change in continuity will obviously be temporary and I think readers are going to really struggle to find why they should be invested in this temporary aspect of the story.
Artists Dale Keown and Carlos Magno do a serviceable job of fleshing out the interior art in the title. I did notice an inconsistency in styles between the two creators. I also couldn’t help but notice the lack of detail in more mundane story settings. There are moments of brilliance like the opening fight scene that plays a host to an impressively destructive set piece. The Hyperion versus Hulk fight is also impressive from a visual perspective featuring great fight choreography and an interesting match of powers. I wish the page layouts in the art were more creative. Also, it is hard to not call out the inconsistencies between certain pages. It may have been better to have one artist working across each issue even if the lead characters change.
Aaron also writes the backup story containing more connecting tissue between this event and the greater Marvel Universe. Unfortunately, this script for the backup issue continues to play into Aaron’s weaknesses. This hapter has an incredibly predictable script threatening to undo the plot work introduced by the opening story. It’s interesting to compare this series with some of my Favorite Jason Aaron stories. Aaron’s “Thor” run with artists like Russell Dauterman, Esad Ribic and Matthew Wilson was never quite this predictable in terms of plotting and story structure. It’s disheartening to read the recap of the story which accidentally spoils nearly the entire plot of the decompressed backup. To make matters worse, Marvel has been following this story structure with lots of their recent events. See “Age of X-Man” or “Secret Wars” as recent examples of Marvel’s dark continuity crossover stories.
Continued belowI’m really tired of complaining at this point but the good news is that there’s nothing in “Heroes Reborn” #2 left to complain about. Ed McGuinness turns in really good work here in the second part of the issue. McGuinness’s figures are large to the point of complete absurdity which ends up working in favor of this script. The art from McGuinness really fits the tone Aaron is going for in this series. I love the creative page layouts from McGuinness and the interesting sense of physicality he brings to other characters to contrast with Hyperion’s art. If Aaron was able to craft a better script for this sequence the art would have carried this portion of the chapter to greatness.
“Heroes Reborn” #2 is a mixed bag. Marvel’s newest event isn’t able to surpass the increasingly common and redundant event-focused premise from The House of Ideas. I hope Marvel’s editorial team will rethink this one-shot-based dark reality event structure and use it more sparingly in future comics. It is disheartening to feel this disconnected from a big Marvel event paying homage to an older story. Marvel clearly needed more time to thoughtfully plan out and build up to this story. Jason Aaron’s scripts already seem a little lost. The audience for a story like this is very narrow.
Final Verdict: 5.0 – “Heroes Reborn” #2 struggles to connect with readers due to a derivative premise and poor execution.
