Avengers AI 5, Captain America Living Legend 2

Avengers AI 5
Humphries (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

After Dimitrios' attack on Washington, AI fears are at an all-time high, making it considerably more difficult for Vision and Alexis to protect the populace and keep order. Making it slightly more easy, though, is that Alexis is successfully cutting her way through Dimitrios' encryptions that kept her memories sealed off from her, giving her a new purpose: she is a protector of all types of life. She also seems to have gained some sort of limited precognition, which she uses to stop an unstable man from blowing up a bank after the bank lost everyone's money in Dimitrios' attack. Back at home, Pym has sealed himself away in his lab to cope with his own bipolar disorder, recognizing (after thorough charting) that he's about to hit a downswing. Monica Chang isn't thrilled with the decision and makes her frustrations clear as she reveals that Victor, with his seemingly dying breath, protected the server's black box but only Pym can actually access it. Meanwhile, Doombot is attempting to revive Victor, feeling that Pym hasn't done enough. Victor's consciousness, on the other hand, has found itself in the Diamond.

I think the pieces are here for a substantial book but right now it's kind of circling around a point. I'm not exactly sure about what's making the book feel uncomfortable right now but something isn't quite clicking. It might be the vagueness of the enemy or the abruptness of the team; we're kind of used to teams needing to build together but, in a day and age where the market is so filled with content, books don't have as much of a chance to build, forcing those "coming together" kinds of arcs to be too short or too staged. I think Humphries has done a pretty good job trying to pull something together for that; everyone here still feels like (with maybe the exception of the mysterious Alexis) he or she has his or her own voice, even in how early we still are in the series. I'd like to see that developed a little further. Another worry is that every book these days, again because there are so many, has to start with a bang or else you won't get any sort of market share, or at least that's how it feels. Therefore, this threat has to be big but it also has to be meaningful and it also has to be beatable by this ragtag team. That's a lot of constraints to put on a first arc, let alone the need to build a team and a theme and what not. I think this book will have to find its legs soon or risk waiting too long.

Captain America Living Legend 2
Diggle and Granov (s) Diggle (w) and Alessio (a and c)

Cap has been sent to Russia to find the crashed DEUS Project and any survivors of the crash. He manages to get there in time to find Dr. Lauren Fox but worries that the Russians must be hot on their trail. She tells him what happened in space and they speculate that maybe the Russians have a little less to do with this than it would appear, given that the area where DEUS was brought down doesn't seem to be constantly patrolled already. The Russians are reactive here, not proactive. There's also a bit of a moral question as Cap informs Fox that her attempt at finding clean, renewable energy has been secretly bankrolled by the Department of Defense, who clearly intend to weaponize whatever she finds. She's mad about it and indicts Cap too, saying that the serum that created him could have been used for peace, not soldiers. They don't really have time to argue, though, as they're attacked by what seems to have been a Russian patrol at some point but is now a mess of metal controlled by some unseen force. Of course, that would be Volkov, eagerly awaiting Cap's return to Russia.

Another neat little issue (though Granov doesn't provide the art for this one, as I had previously assumed; Alessio still does a fantastic job, keeping with the feel of the book Granov had created while clearly making the art his own) that, again, impressive goes out of its way to characterize people who aren't our main characters. In fact, again they're Russian and they die almost immediately after their characterization. I know, that seems like a small thing to bring up, especially to lead an analysis paragraph, but it's really not. It both makes it feel like a real situation (not just comic book villains everywhere, there are real people really dying as a result of...okay, as a result of the comic book villain) and it makes me feel better as an American that there is a depiction of normal Russians as just people. Diggle's not American, sure, but it's still nice to see. Like, all of our war games that make, you know, untold billions of dollars seem to feature Russians as the enemy these days because we still think maybe we can win the Cold War or something (more like the COD War, am I right? Classic) and it's honestly a little uncomfortable. Comics (good ones, anyway) tend to be pretty good about spreading the right message in these sorts of situations; there's a Captain America book from just after 9-11 that depicted Americans surrounding an innocent Middle Eastern man before Cap steps in. The Middle Eastern man comes off looking great and the Americans look like jerks which was a pretty big statement for a country that wanted nothing more than war. Anyway, getting a little off-topic, I didn't mean for this point to carry on throughout the whole paragraph. I guess I can let it do that because Diggle's a solid writer and he's writing a good Cap and a good story, leaving me with time to talk about the little things instead of talking about what doesn't feel right. Sure the obvious antagonist is still a Russian and, perhaps, a more Russia-obssessed Russian, but Diggle has gone out of his way to make sure we know that he is not your typical Russian. And it makes a difference.