Uncanny Avengers 4

Uncanny Avengers 4
Remender (w) and Cassaday (a) and Martin w/ Molinar (c)

I'm pretty sure I started my last review saying something along the lines of "Wow." There's no reason not to do that here too. This book was incredible. There's a major story going on and there are major threats around, but it didn't stop Remender from loading this with character and with small moments. It's a really gorgeous issue (both in writing and in art/colors) and, unless you have a real aversion to captions or a bit of bloodshed, you should read it. I said yesterday that part of why I was looking forward to this book was the haunting last images from last issue. That's no less true and that feeling was certainly well met. The book starts off right where the last one left off; there's crazy carnage all around New York as homo sapiens have attacked new mutants in the streets of the city under the mind-control powers of Charles Xavier as wielded by the Red Skull. Wolverine has fallen and Scarlet Witch and Havok are trying to shut a practically possessed Thor down to get to Skull. Captain America, meanwhile, is fighting his own battle against Skull's powers, trying to keep Skull's hate out of his mind. It's exciting and fascinating on every front. Scarlet Witch needs a tremendous amount of power to outlast Thor, which she eventually musters with the help of Havok to keep Thor in check while she charges. She ends up tapping directly into her chaos energies and unleashing a massive attack on the Asgardian that launches him out of the fight for enough time to allow Havok to get to Skull. It also takes her out of the fight for the remainder, as she needs rest to recover. Skull, meanwhile, is busy trying to convert Captain America to his side, playing on Cap's own insecurities about the country. With his psychic powers, Skull can see the frustrations Steve has in the America that is compared to the America that could be. It's a really revealing few pages (and only gives me more faith in Remender on the Captain America series itself) that explain perfectly what I've complained about on here before, most recently in my post on comic-based video games. Cap isn't a shill for America, blindly echoing patriotic sentiments. He has real opinions on the country and how great it could be but he knows it's not there and there's a chance it won't ever be there. His responsibility is to always fight to try to get it to that point. Skull, though, latches on to his problems and fears about America and tries to promise him real change in the way he'd run things. Cap, with the help of Rogue and Havok, keeps Skull from fully planting any idea in his head and beats Skull down with the shield. Skull manages to escape with one of his S-Men, but the spell is broken. Thor comes down from orbit restored and Wolverine's healing factor (previously blocked by a different S-Man, kicks back in, allowing him to slowly recover.

I usually try not to spend too much time on recap because a.) I don't want to give away the whole issue and b.) I try not to write five pages per review. This comic forces my hand because I think it's so near perfect. There's lots of dialogue and many captions from an omniscient narrator, as has been true so far in this series, but that never slows the book down, like it can in other comics. Also, every part of this book develops a character or shows off this team. Just in naturally recapping, I found myself painting a picture of how this team works together instinctively. It's really impressive, given that so many teams these days feel like they're cut and pasted together and everyone has their distinct roles. Here, every team member does whatever they can to try to ultimately stop Skull, which is how it should be. The fight FEELS real for a fight involving superheroes and villains. Skull's attempt to brainwash Cap not only shows off Cap's feelings about America (perfectly captured, I think, though obviously with a more Red Skull hatred bent than really shows up in Cap's thoughts), it lays out what Skull wants to do. Yes, it's likely inaccurate because he's simply trying to get Cap on his side, but it's an argument that you can picture Steve having trouble turning down (when he's under some amount of mind-control, obviously). It also wonderfully references some X-Men history, with Skull describing a future with mutants on the run that directly harkens back to Days of Future Past with the famous "slain/apprehended" wanted mutants wall. Remender ties in MORE X-Men history later, as he hints towards a future with Red Skull acting as Onslaught, whose identity is tied with that of Professor Xavier.

This book is making a real pull for Avengers and mutants to work together. These kinds of things tend to just focus on the Avengers or bring in the Avengers and mutants working together but don't deal with the fact that they ARE Avengers and mutants working together. Remender's doing a fantastic job to make everything connect and feel like AvX had real consequences and that mutants are a real piece of this world that make humans uncomfortable. It's masterfully done and we're only four issues in. This might legitimately challenge my love of New Avengers for best new Marvel book. There are also enough light moments and introspective moments and really, truly sweet moments to make this book fit a wide spectrum of emotion. If you're not reading this book, you're making a mistake. It's as simple as that. It's a pretty dark book at times because it's covering extremely dark subject matter, but if you can get past that, it's a wonderful read.



JUST A NOTE: I apologize for this being just one review. I tend to tie a couple reviews into one post, which was my intent upon starting this post. However, given how long this review was, I felt justified in leaving it as its own review. More importantly, though, I was so blown away by this issue that I actually had to take a break before I reviewed my next book (which I'm incredibly excited about) because I was worried another book wouldn't live up to the expectations this one set. READ THIS BOOK.