Uncanny Avengers 19, Original Sin 0

Gahhh, I'm all behind because I couldn't get my hands on UA until late last night and I didn't want to post it that late and GAAAAH, sorry for the slow release Wednesday!

Uncanny Avengers 19
Remender (w) and Acuña (a and c) and Cowles (l)

Havok has brought Kang and his army to Planet X but Kang reveals the only way this whole venture will work is if Havok gathers the surviving Unity Squad members (made easier since Thor came back with Kang and his army) and they send their consciousness back through the wall on the other side of the trip. Alex isn't prepared for this development and refuses until Kang takes his daughter Katie, promising to return her when everything is set right. Meanwhile, Eimin has caught wind of the plan and told the X-Council, a council of mutants that you'd pretty much expect to be on that council (Cyclops, Cable, Storm, Jean Grey, Psylocke, etc). Their job is to stop Havok from succeeding or else watch the planet cease to exist. Tricky battles upcoming, you guys.

Story
Plenty happening here as Planet X has to fight for its own existence against the hope that Earth could be restored. As Eimin herself points out, the mutants are happy on Planet X so even the death of any hope that Earth could come back (or the death of the X-Council, as Eimin's secretly planned with remaining Horsemen Banshee and Daken) won't really hurt their spirits. It's a classic storyline where the ethical quandary is front and center and it's certainly a good enough story to hold that up. 5/5

Character
There's maybe a little more telling than showing here, though it's almost strange the way it's done since there's still an awful lot of showing JUST AFTER the telling. Look, that's confusing. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of points where someone will say something about another character's personality and then that trait will show itself. For example, Cyclops will say something about Havok being frustrating or stubborn and then Havok will be, to him, frustrating or stubborn. Just giving us the "showing" is fine after a certain point. Still, there are a lot of characters here and plenty that we kind of want to catch up with or understand more (practically alternate versions of everyone since we're seeing mutants after six years on a mutant-only planet plus alternate versions of several heroes/villains in Kang's army including that one future Psylocke Remender introduced way, way back in UNCANNY X-FORCE). Not really enough time to do it but most of them still get some sort of personality check and it's definitely neat to see. 4/5

Writing
Gone are the days of a separate narrator, the interesting throwback to an omniscient narrator telling us strange little guarded secrets. It was pretty cool to see it in this book while it lasted but the book is no poorer for its absence. Aside from the mildly strange "tell and show" thing I mentioned in the character bit, there's nothing really to worry about here. Even the necessary name checks to let the audience in on some changed appearances and new status quos work and fit mostly seamlessly in. 5/5

Art
I love Daniel Acuña's art and it continues to impress here. The art and the colors are so epic and yet they manage to also be remarkably expressive. Everyone looks different and everyone has a very distinct personality to their actions and to their expressions. It's incredible. No complaints from me! 5/5

Miscellaneous
The only kind of jarring thing here is that occasionally the speech bubbles change colors and I'm not totally sure why? Sometimes that happens for a specific character's speech but it happens to different characters and it doesn't happen often enough to show anything particularly different.

Total score: 4/5


Original Sin 0
Waid (w) and Cheung w/Medina (p) and Morales w/Ortega, Meikis, Vlasco, and Cheung (i) and Ponsor (c) and Eliopolous (l)

After a fight with a purported Aztec deity who turns out to be a robot that probably Roxxon sent out to devalue Native American oil rigs, Nova asks the Avengers why the Watcher does what he does. They admit they don't know but he's determined to find out, so he visits the moon to ask Watcher himself. When he arrives, his helmet immediately starts warning him of danger and he sees some of it first hand, including stumbling into a massive armory at the Watcher's home. Finally he begins to understand Uatu as he shows him the origin of the Watcher and his race of Watchers. They had decided, in large part due to Uatu's father Ikor, that they would assist races weaker than their own to realize their potential. It went poorly then and Ikor decreed that they would be Watchers from here on out, only observing and never interacting. It's a pretty terrible life and Uatu combs the multiverse for examples of universes wherein his father had been right to try to help, unable to find any. It bonds Sam, who wishes things had turned out differently with his father, and the Watcher, even making enough of a difference for Uatu that he reveals to Sam that Sam's father is still alive.

Story
This is our lead-in to ORIGINAL SIN, the big Marvel event of 2014. Like most of these lead-ins, it's a little exposition-heavy without being altogether plot-heavy (have to build up excitement and background for the main series without giving too much away from a potentially shocking first issue) but it gets to what it needs to get to. In this case, we get a much better look at the Watcher for those who already know him and we get a solid introduction for those who may be less familiar, all through the eyes of perfect audience stand-in Sam Alexander, someone still new to superheroing and this universe. 4/5

Character
Aside from some choppy writing, Sam's character comes out pretty well in this. He handles a big monster, gets really excited about the appearance of the Avengers, shows a little naivety and idealism, and gets awkward when he realizes how weird it is that he just visited the Watcher at his home. As good as the characterization of Sam can be in a book that has to explain so much, the characterization of Uatu is better. A new audience can get a firm grip on a seemingly intangible character. There's background, there's personality (albeit limited to "he wanted to help people" and "he wishes his father had been right") and it very nearly makes us care about the Watcher, which is the biggest pothole Marvel may need to face with this big event. 4/5

Writing
I have some sympathy here. There's not a lot you can say about the writing because the aim of this issue is to be really exposition-laden. You have to establish the Watcher, you have to explain what it is he does and why he does what he does and more, and you have to have a few more characters make appearances here and there, let alone establishing our POV character Sam for audiences who may not know him well. Still, this book is really exposition heavy, which makes it a bit of a long read. The other major problem I have is one that I tend to have with a number of writers which is that it's hard to write a believable teenager and Sam never truly comes off as authentic here. I think that Jeph Loeb had trouble at the start of this series doing just that before Zeb Wells, who did a pretty phenomenal job under the circumstances, and Gerry Duggan, who is doing a perfectly fine job. Again, it's hard because Waid's introducing Sam to maybe first-time Sam readers and his goal here isn't to write a believable teen for the long run, it's to write a believable Watcher origin and get us excited for ORIGINAL SIN. Still, the writing isn't Waid's normal pretty top-notch stuff, though I'm going to show some leniency for getting the job done regardless. 3/5

Art
Jim Cheung does a pretty great job here drawing a slew of characters and making each of them, even the ever giant-headed and bald Watcher, look very human. There's even a little turn where Iron Man, in full Iron Man armor, manages to perfectly show emotion on an emotionless iron face as he turns to Cap. It's good art and it gets the job done, particularly as we see the sadness (helped by the inks and the colors) in Uatu as he recalls his own dark origins and wishes that things had turned out differently for his people and for his father. 5/5

Miscellaneous
As I said above, the biggest hurdle Jason Aaron and everyone else behind this new series will face is making people care about the death of the Watcher. I don't dislike the Watcher but, you know, he's just kind of there. He's a device at its most device-like. The thing in their corner, of course, is that whoever shot him must have access to all the information he was carrying. So, you know, this is me defining ORIGINAL SIN, I guess?


Total score: 4/5