Written by Christos Gage
Illustrated by Mike McKoneAvengers Academy vs. The Hood! The video of Tigra being beaten by The Hood ends up on the internet — but what’s more dangerous: how Tigra reacts, or the mission of revenge the students embark upon? And when they seek out Parker Robbins, are they getting in way over their heads…or going so far down the path of evil they can never turn back? And how does it all lead to The Hood’s new quest in AVENGERS? Don’t miss this powerful chapter in the hit new series that has Aint It Cool News raving: “With this simple yet elegant twist…it’s nice to see that teenage angst isn’t just for mutants anymore.”
Tigra’s vicious beating at the hands of The Hood finally gets addressed, and it’s by her motley crew of students at Avengers Academy. How does it work as an issue?
Find out after the jump.
The first seven issues of Avengers Academy has led me two deem it two things. First, in my mind it’s the most underrated superhero book out there. Second, I think it’s also the best Avengers book on the market.
With that said, I think this was the weakest issue yet. This is the first one without a singular focus on a character with the Academy serving as a backdrop for their personal drama (it does mostly focus on Tigra, but there is no narration on her part to match it up with the rest of the issues), and it’s not that it suffers because of that, but it certainly doesn’t help. The whole issue feels a bit old hat (we already had a trio of these Academy members go for revenge against a prominent bad guy in the series) and some of the leads act, even for them, atypically foolish.
While we expect Striker to act like a self-obsessed idiot who would put a video up on YouTube of him beating up The Hood (I really liked the little take Gage had on viral video in this issue, however), but for Veil and Hazmat to support that? Hazmat is very grumpy and Veil is naive, but this just didn’t seem to ring true for the characters.
The way Gage handled Tigra’s message about her run-in with The Hood, however, was very gracefully handled and somehow didn’t fall into the trap of being ham fisted. Quite often moments like this can get preachy, but Gage handled this in the type of way that so many others miss entirely.
I also liked the ending of the issue and the direction it took, and I’m very interested to see what exactly comes from it. It was a bit vague, but I liked the delivery.
After one issue of a fill-in artist, Mike McKone was back and was up to his standard high quality work here. McKone is a very underrated artist, and he’s provided clean lines, emotive characters and stellar storytelling on every issue of this series so far. Some scenes, like the assault on The Hood, simply wouldn’t have been nearly as good without McKone’s efforts.
While this wasn’t the best issue of the series, it wasn’t a burn by any means. It was a solid book, just not a top effort for this impressive series. No less, I’m really looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
Final Verdict: 6.5 – Browse
