“Wait, Al Ewing’s not black? I’m kinda shocked to find that
out! Still, nice job dude!”
For a while now, I’ve been going through different runs of
comics physically or through apps like Marvel Unlimited. One series I was
somewhat curious about was Al Ewing’s run on Mighty Avengers. It was a series
that was supposed to take lesser known known Marvel superheroes and team them
up. The interesting thing was that the team was mostly full of minority
characters. I was curious about getting the series, but when I saw Greg Land
was doing the art, I said “Nah.” After re-reading it and it’s “sequel,” Captain
America and The Mighty Avengers, I’m kind of regretting that.
Volume 2 of Mighty Avengers started to hit shelves in 2014 right
as the umpteenth Marvel crossover, Infinity, was coming out. Luke Cage and a
few other lesser-known heroes (including Spider-Man at times) decided to create
a new team. Unlike the big-leagues, they were more interested in helping the
common folk. They even set up a call center at their headquarters in Gem
Theater. After 14 issues, the book was then relaunched as Captain America and
the Mighty Avengers (CAATMA) just in time for Marvel’s other umpteenth crossover, AXIS. It
then came to an end at nine issues as the next crossover event, Secret Wars,
was starting up… are you seeing a pattern?
Anyway, I came across the series during my read-through of
Johnathan Hickman’s runs on Avengers and New Avengers. I was going to talk
about it last month, but I’m lazy when it comes to this stuff, so you’re
getting it here. Al Ewing, who’s still at it these days, helmed the book for
all its duration. The run did have multiple artists, though. On pencils, we had
the aforementioned Greg Land, Valerio Schiti, Salvador Larroca, Luke Ross, and
Iban Coello. Most of the pencillers like Ross, Larroca, Schiti, and Coello
provided inks for their own work. Other inking was done by Jay Liesten. The
colorists were Frank D’Amata, Edgar Delgado, Matt Milla, and Rachelle
Rosenburg. The lettering was done by Cory Petit and Travis Lanham.
Okay, I can either pick Captain America, Ryu, Wolverine, or that weird catlady from Deathstalkers to beat this mofo.
Here’s a quick rundown of the series:
- Infinity (#1-3) – This takes place during the Infinity crossover. Since the Avengers are off-world fighting, Thanos and his minions come to attack Earth. Luckily, New York gets protected by Luke Cage, White Tiger, Spectrum, the new Power Man, Blue Marvel, an unknown hero, and the Superior Spider-Man, aka “The Jackass Spider-Man.” Not only do they take on Proxima Midnight (one of Thanos’s Black Order), they also take on Summa-Gorath, that weird one-eyed tentacle monster you’d see in the Marvel Capcom games. Since Luke was looking to still stay in the hero business and be a family man, the Mighty Avengers are formed.
- Inhumanity (#4-5) – These two issues deal with the team dealing with the ramifications of the Terrigan Mists being released all over the world. They also gotta deal with some supernatural stuff that the unknown hero (who ends up throwing on the Ronin costume) is involved in. Also, Otto Spidey lives up to the “jackass” nickname I gave him while Falcon and She-Hulk join the team. A rich business mogul by the name of Jason Quantrell is introduced. He comes back heavily in CAATMA.
- MA #6-9 – These issues more or less deal with the team itself. Characters like White Tiger, Blue Marvel, and Ronin (who’s revealed to be Blade) deal with some personal and professional things. Blue Marvel has some family business to attend to, the murderer who killed White Tiger’s parents is back on the streets, and Blade is being chased down by a group called the Deathwalkers.
- Original Sin (#10-12) – This more or less ties into Original Sin. While some of the team help out in the main event, Blade’s long battle with the Deathwalkers comes to the forefront. Since secrets get revealed in this event, it turns out that another team of “Mighty Avengers” faced the Deathwalkers in the 1970’s. The team included Blade, Blue Marvel, and Luke Cage’s father, Carl Lucas.
- MA #13-14 – This two-parter brings this part of the run to an end. Blade gets captured by the Deathwalkers who have a plot to take over the world. The team go out for a final battle. They also get some help from a dark magician named Kaluu and he eventually joins the team in the relaunch.
- AXIS (CAATMA #1-3) – This ties right into AXIS. To make a long story short, Luke Cage and “Captain Falcon” (Sam became Captain America when Steve Rogers got old) get turned evil because of what was going on with the Red Skull. I haven’t read this event, so I don’t know all of what happened. All I know is that stuff happened and Spider-Man (the real, Amazing variety) comes back. Also, Tony Stark ends up sporting a sweet new suit. Too bad he was evil.
- CAATMA #4-7 – These issues pretty much seal up any lingering plot threads. Captain Falcon (I like that nickname) and Luke have to deal with some of the problems they caused back in the last arc. Jason Quantrell (who’s smiling a bit too much for my taste) makes a major play in the evil department. His true reveal even plays into Spectrum’s time with the team, HEATWAVE. We get more of Blue Marvel and his family drama.
- Last Days (CAATMA #8-9) – This final story goes into the team’s actions during the Last Days as Secret Wars began. Basically, Steve Rogers (old and cranky) catches them up on the Illuminati’s (the Marvel variety) actions and they join the fight. Then, like this series, the world literally comes to an end with the team doing their thing.
As you can probably tell, I really enjoyed this run. It has
its fair share of problems, but it has more good than bad. The team itself was
pretty cool in itself. While there wasn’t too much done with them, what stories
we got were nice. I’ll say more down below.
Man, will you stop smiling? You're scaring the children and me!
I thought that this was a pretty good team. Ewing did his
best to make them seem interesting. While the main draw of the book was that
most of the members were POC (persons of color), that ultimately didn’t matter.
They all brought something different to the team. They were diverse in a lot of
ways from personality to age. You had the young ones (White Tiger and Power
Man), the seasoned vets (Luke Cage, She-Hulk, Falcon, Spectrum, Blade, and
Spider-Man), and the oldies (Blue Marvel and Kaluu). While I liked all of them,
my favorites were Luke, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, and She-Hulk. Ewing also tried
to get personal with members like White Tiger, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, and
couple of others. Since most of these characters hadn’t been used much, Ewing
was able to get something done with them.
I thought the writing for the series was pretty good
overall. The dialogue was nice. While the team was a group was formed to help
the common folk, they’d also take on big threats. Heck, they faced off against
aliens and a supernatural threat in the first arc. There was also the long arc
involving Blade and the Deathwalkers that was throughout the first run. Even
when the team got roped into major crossovers (heck, it spun out of a
crossover), Ewing was able to make it work for the team and the story he was
trying to tell.
The writing could also be pretty humorous at times. Ewing
injected some British humor in and it definitely shows. While it did get
serious and dark, there was fun to be had. When you got Blade going up against
a bunch of anthropomorphic snakes and roosters, you gotta laugh at that somehow.
Luckily, the humor wasn’t at the expense of the characters… well, there’s
Spider-Man, but I’ll touch on that later.
I think one of my sister's roosters was from this clan. That thing would attack everybody.
Artwork
The artwork for the run was good for the most part. It was
able to be big as well as personal. While there were multiple pencillers on the
book, they didn’t stray too far from each other. It wouldn’t be like getting
Michalangelo one issue and then getting Picasso the next. Yes, that can happen
and it is kind of annoying.
I gotta say that Land's stuff is good looking... a little too good looking.
Yeah, I’m admitting here that I enjoyed the Greg Land
artwork. I guess my thing about his stuff is that it seems too polished. I know
most don’t like him for that and other reasons. Still, I shouldn’t have let
that deter me from checking out this book back in 2014. Luckily, he’s not the
only artist around. My favorite artists from the whole run were Valerio
Schiti and Luke Ross. They all tried to make the team look dynamic and they
succeeded for the most part.
While I had a couple of issues with Spidey, this scene was nice.
Complaints/Issues/Problems
While I liked this series, there were issues. One of the
biggest issues wasn’t even Ewing’s fault: the constant crossovers. It’s more of
a problem with Marvel these days since crossover events pop up every few months.
In a span of 24 issues, this series tied into four (five if you count
Inhumanity which wasn’t an event) big events. That’s a lot to me and I hope I’m
not the only one who sees that. Ewing was able to work around that fact, but it
was a problem to me.
Instead of dealing with the team itself or its story, we had
to deal with other stuff and not all of it was good. The one I had a problem
with was the tie-in to AXIS. I haven’t read that event and something tells me
that I shouldn’t any time soon. Since the series tied into a crapton of events,
I felt not enough time was spent with the characters themselves. I definitely
felt that in CAATMA where I believe Ewing needed to rush his stories to a
conclusion. That part of the run itself felt off mostly because of that.
AXIS... yay. At least Iron Man's suit looks sweet. Also, I guess someone didn't get the memo on Thor's arm...
While I did like the artwork for the most part, not all of
it gelled for me. As I said before, Land’s stuff can be a little too polished.
There was a reason I didn’t pick this up back in 2014. While Schiti and Ross
were my favorite artists, some of their work could be a little subpar. Then,
there are the rest like Larocca and Coello. Salvador Larocca isn’t a bad artist
but I felt his artwork was a little rushed for his time. He did #13-14. While I
liked that story, the artwork wasn’t the best. As for Coello, he wasn’t my cup
of tea. He wasn’t bad but when you compare him to ones like Ross and Schiti, he
wasn’t as good as those two. I think I’d even want Land over him.
If you think this is weird, check out Ewing's run on New Ultimates.
So, what else didn’t I like? I thought Spidey’s portrayal
(the real one, not the Otto one) felt a bit off. As I said before, CAATMA just
felt off to me in general. It wasn’t bad, but I could tell that Ewing was in
rush mode. He had to get the Quantrell plot wrapped up as well as other things.
Other than these things I’ve mentioned and small quibbles, I thought that this
was a nice little series.
……………………………………………………..
In the end, this wasn’t a bad run at all. Yeah, it had its
issues, but Ewing brought good things to the table. He continued Luke Cage’s
story after Bendis was done with him, he used Blade in a cool way, and he added
more story to Blue Marvel. After Secret Wars, Ewing was put on New Ultimates, a
series that kind of had the same M.O. as this book: put a group of diverse
characters together and tell big stories. That may be a series I’ll talk about
later. For now, I’m outta here. Peace, God Bless, and can someone tell Marvel that
their fans may be tired of the Big, Life-Changing Crap? Seriously, lay off the
crossover events!
Cue theme music!
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