Avengers 5, Avengers Assemble Annual 1

Avengers 5
Hickman (w) and Kubert (a) and Martin (c)

As I had speculated last week, Hickman didn't stay with the arc he'd established (the idea of the organic bombs that AIM was tracking down) but did stay with the examination of a new character. After last week's time with Hyperion, this week we see Smasher, Isabel Dare, as he becomes Smasher and as she fights for the Shi'ar who gave her power. The Shi'ar, we learn, has an extensive guard unit comprised of all sorts of different types of soldiers, one of which is Smasher-type. The easiest comparison I can make is to Nova of the Nova Corps. When a Shi'ar planet fell, one Smasher present on that planet was sent to Earth to warn them, but did not survive the full journey. However, his "synthetic tri-plated spectra-form" (his sweet glasses) is an organic construct. They land on Earth, where Izzy finds them and eventually puts them on, transforming her into a Smasher, with flight, stronger exo-skeleton, and laser eyes, not to mention a database in her head, not totally unlike Iron Man's armor or, as I said, Nova's helmet.

The story then moves back and forth in Izzy's life, going from her home life on an Iowa farm, where she helps her widowed father and dying grandfather, to the Shi'ar homeworld Chandilar. It's all interesting and builds Izzy's character pretty fast. She was an astronomer (or something of the like) in Colorado when her mother died and she decided to move back to Iowa to help out. JUST FROM THAT (which is presented in maybe one panel of dialogue) we know tons about her character. Smart, caring, responsible, space-lover, etc. Pretty neat-o writing, especially since it doesn't just come out of nowhere. It's organic in the text and there are little hints about much of it dropped before that dialogue that make more sense after that dialogue. Natural. ANYWAY, she puts on the spectra-form and becomes Smasher and flies into space. Izzy Dare is also daring. Nailed it. She finds Chandilar, learns about her Shi'ar responsibilities and comes home a month later to find her grandfather officially on his death bed. He reveals to her that he was a hero pal of Captain America and advises her to go meet with him. After looking it up briefly, I found Dan Dare is an old-school British sci-fi hero (hopefully that's the same Dan Dare we're dealing with here; couldn't figure out much by way of who owned him and licensing and what not, could be a different Dan Dare with a different background we just don't know) in the sort of Buck Rogers line. Neat.

Interspersed with all this is a story taking place on the Shi'ar galactic rim. The guard is being overrun by sentient drones and an attacking alien force and waiting for reinforcements from the superguardians (the highest branch of the imperial guard; Smasher is a member of the subguardians, like most soldiers in the guard). Smasher leads the Avengers there (with the help of Manifold) and they help turn the tide. The Shi'ar superguardian Gladiator finally shows up and congratulates and thanks the Avengers before deeming Smasher a superguardian. Exciting times for her. Why were the aliens attacking the massive Shi'ar empire in the first place? We find out at the end that they weren't attacking; they were running from something. BUM BUM BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM. Good story, good character, fascinating book so far.

Avengers Assemble Annual 1
Gage (w) and Coker w/ Mayhew, Deodato, Ross, and De Landro (a) and Freedman (c)

I believe this is the second Avengers-related annual issue in a couple years to feature the Vision and, particularly, the Vision's readjustment to the world and to a world with Wanda in it. Last time we saw a lot of anger and he attacked Magneto, which was interesting. This time there's more sadness to Vision, which I like. Vision has always been a pretty tragic character. Created by Ultron to harm the Avengers, he ends up joining them and being a pretty integral part and finding family. However, he's still an android. He's more human than other robots but it's still possible to disassemble and reassemble him. That comes up a lot in this issue, the pain he felt at his "family" abandoning him. There's a nice bit between Captain Marvel and Vision where she tries to get to the route of the problem but he's not terribly forthcoming. Finally he reveals to Giant Man and Iron Man that he's hurt by how long it took to reassemble him after the events of House of M. It's all interesting, especially given the scope of the Universe as a whole. We had seen, in passing, Tony or someone else working on the Vision from time to time before he was officially reassembled. We also, as an audience, know exactly how busy everyone's been since House of M and we've been told in dialogue between Tony and others how difficult it is to reassemble Vision without potentially losing his personality.

There's a school of thought that would have seen all this happen, then had Vision come back and say "Boy, I sure am happy to be back! Let's get to work!" and thought nothing more of it. The Avengers worked tirelessly to restore Vision and he recognizes that and they all live happily with the results. I don't care for that school of thought because it feels too simple. Even while I say that, though, I know that if it had happened that way, I would have said "gee, that feels a little anticlimactic" and moved on, happy to have Vision back. Now that I have this situation to compare it to, I know that's an awful solution. This is the more real one, the more nuanced one. Marvel prides itself on characters, and on real characters at that. So no, Vision, the synthetic man, is not a real character, but you can feel what he feels and understand what he understands because of issues like this. That's absolutely what books should be striving for, a deeper understanding of their characters and a way to make them real and pertinent. Vision examines his life as a whole, separate from that of his Avengers life, and discovers he doesn't really have one. It also makes him reach out to his "sons," Tommy and Billy of the Young Avengers (the original run, not this new one only because Tommy hasn't been introduced to that team yet, if he's going to be), who Wanda created out of madness. If you're not a Vision fan, you can miss this annual. If you have any interest in the Vision or the Young Avengers or the Roxxon Corporation, pick this one up. It's worth reading.




That's the end of post one for today. With so many books, I'm going to flirt this week with releasing two posts a day with reviews, so I don't have four reviews of four-five books a day. Especially today, Avengers day, where I REALLY want to dedicate time to these two books (as you can see above, boy I wrote a lot) and New Avengers and Secret Avengers. That post should come around soon-ish.