USAvengers #1 Featured Image Reviews 

“U.S.Avengers” #1

By | January 5th, 2017
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What does it mean to be an Avenger? What does the Avengers as an order, as an organisation and as a belief even mean anymore? With more superheroes in the world than ever, how can yet another team book stand out from the crowd? By appealing to an overwhelmingly earnest sense of patriotism, apparently.

Spinning out of their run on “New Avengers”, Al Ewing and Paco Medina follows up Roberto Da Costa’s attempts at forging a new legacy for A.I.M. in the aftermath of “Civil War II” and presents it’s new America-focused direction with “U.S.Avengers” #1.

Written by Al Ewing
Illustrated by Paco Media
In a world beset by danger, the United States of America needs a team of heroes they can rely on. Welcome to… American Intelligence Mechanics! A.I.M. will dare any danger — no matter how awesome that danger might be — to save their nation from the wildest, weirdest threats of all! The most patriotic super-group ever is here to save the day. And they’ll do it all looking tried & true in the red, white & blue! Can you live without…the U.S.Avengers?

In the past four years, there have been so many different spinoffs, relaunches, reboots and rebrandings of the various Avengers teams that it’s getting harder and harder for new team books to stand out. To simply sell a team book on it’s cast or its creators is rarely enough anymore, there needs to be some kind of mission statement that sets it apart from all the other team books you’ve read before. That’s something of a problem that “U.S.Avengers” #1 runs into: in focusing on introducing readers to the characters and the logistical breakdown of how A.I.M. went from being an evil collective of supergeniuses to a… not evil collective of supergeniuses, the mission statement of the team is never really addressed.

Sure, Al Ewing does a great job of justifying and extrapolating the concept of an American-focused Avengers team with a lot of depth of storytelling. This largely comes from the diversity of the team with it being lead an Afro-Brazillian immigrant to America who is also a mutant and including a gay Asian American woman who is the new Iron Patriot, her girlfriend who is a Norwegian immigrant, the middle American son of a miner, a man who I am still not entirely convinced isn’t Thunderbolt Ross and, of course, Squirrel Girl. The point is, Ewing does a fantastic job at establishing that no one type of person represents American and that it is represented by the collective experiences and expressions of the American people.

Throughout the issue, the reader is presented with the character talking directly to the “camera”, as it were, explaining their backgrounds and their world view. While these sections are very heavily laden with exposition, Ewing uses it to establish to breadth of viewpoints that are captured by the concept of America. Despite how clunky these scenes can be (they’re literally made up of the characters telling their backstories directly to the reader), the represent how interesting the core idea can be. The problem is, that idea doesn’t really coalesce into any sense of direction.

In between characters chatting to the camera like it’s an episode of The Office, they are thrown into a mission against a resurgent Secret Empire that basically serves as a sequence of scenes where the characters get to show off their powers after telling them their backstories. It’s perhaps the most softball threat I’ve seen thrown at a new team in the first issue. Despite being the crux of the issue, it is resolved and brushed under the rug so quickly that the concept of what the threat was and what was being threatened barely had a chance to sink in. It stems from a larger problem with the issue: it doesn’t know why the team exists.

Of course, the title “U.S.Avengers” should explain it all: it’s a team of superheroes designed to stop threats to American soil, right? But this is the Marvel Universe. The majority of superheroes live within five squares blocks of each other in Manhattan. Every superhero team is ostensibly designed to stop threats to American soil. Despite some very good thematic work in creating a team that represents that vastness of the viewpoints encompassed by the concept of America, it’s hard to get a read on why exactly this team is specifically focused on defending and representing America.

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It’s an issue that seems to dance around the question of its own existence, jumping from narrative to narrative in order to distract the reader from the realisation that it has no real direction before dropping what I’m assuming is supposed to be a big reveal in the final pages to hook the reader into wanting more. The writing survives, barely, on the strength of characterisation alone. Thankfully, the artwork fairs much better throughout.

Paco Medina does a fantastic job of embracing the ridiculousness of the scenarios in this issue and presenting them as dynamic and full of energy. He doesn’t shy away from the scale of the superheroics on display and while the threat of the issue doesn’t really allow for a lot of unique scenarios, Medina showcases the small amount of panel time that Squirrel Girl receives to amazing effect. The linework is very clean and crisp thanks to the inks by Juan Vlasco with clear storytelling throughout and general style that feels, for a lack of a better term, appropriately superhero-y. Combined with the bright palette Jesus Arbutov, the art team perfectly nails the feeling of an over-the-top, action pack superhero team book. Even if the writing meanders in direction, the artwork consistently provides the sense of action and scale you would expect from a book carrying the mantle of “The Avengers”.

The problem is, the script constantly hamstrings the art team in the visual storytelling. Constantly cutting back to these to-the-camera interviews with the characters not only suffers from some pretty clunky expository dialogue, but continually interrupts the flow of the artwork for pages that focus on little more than closeups of the characters. While Medina’s work with the character expressions makes it visually interesting, it’s storytelling that is pure dialogue and doesn’t allow the visual to tell that story. Not only that, but it’s space that could have been used to expand on the action of the issue, giving Squirrel Girl and Cannonball more than fleeting cameos and visually exploring a character like Enigma’s ability more naturally than the way Ewing has her explain her powers to the enemy just so the reader knows what’s happening.

While I was worried that “U.S.Avengers” #1 would be a tactless attempt at an Avengers story by way of a Michael Bay-style jerkoff session about patriotism and whatnot, I needn’t have bothered. Ewing’s script was incredibly thoughtful in that regard, presenting a team for America that represented the diversity inherent in the American people (though, sadly, without any Native American representation). What’s most surprising is that where this book tripped up is in the presentation of the team as an Avengers team. It was so hard to get a read on the purpose of the team and of the book itself that any good elements seem to shrink in the face of acknowledging that this issue just doesn’t have much going on.

Final Verdict: 5.1 – There’s enough talent here that this title could become something genuinely good with a solid follow up, but this wasn’t the debut this team deserved.


Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

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