Wednesday is Comic Day!

by Kurt Busiek & George Perez (& Carlos Pacheco for the annual) Includes issues 1-11 and the first annual George Perez is the master. Avengers Assemble Volume 1 showcases his typical strengths and occasional weaknesses.

I don't think anyone is as skilled at inserting as many characters into a scene as he is. I'm not just talking the big roster scenes where there are a hundred characters unconnected to a common background, but to scenes like the sitting room in the Avengers mansion or a battle scene where there are many, many characters but they all fit into the perspective. Beautiful stuff. He also manages to make every character have a unique face. Unmasked, no one would confuse his Steve Rogers with his Clint Barton. If he has an easily recognizable weakness it is his horrendous, stuck in the 70s fashion sense. No one can give a character an uglier set of clothes or hairstyle than George Perez can! Probably the biggest surprise to me was how incredibly wordy Kurt Busiek is. No character says four words when they can say twelve and the words are often overly formal. Oh - and the exposition! Good God there is a lot of exposition. Maybe it seemed more blatant because I read the hardback in one sitting. A character would have a thought bubble where they described the scene that I just read six pages back. And why must Scarlet Witch explain, every time she summons Wonder Man, that she has acquired this new ability, but she doesn't know how or why? I didn't read this run when it first came out and I remember people complaining when Bendis took over that it would become a talking head fest. Without George Perez's ability to squeeze a ton of action into the same panel as dialogue - this volume would have been a colossal talking head fest. There seemed to be a lot of repetition in the book, too. There should be a drinking game where one drinks a shot everytime Thor walks into the room and says he must leave the Avengers for a while to go deal with his own issues - but he will always make himself available when the Avengers need him. Forsooth. None of the actual plots were that rivetting, yet there were enough character beats and the constant stunning art made the read very enjoyable. Several characters that have usually felt two dimensional, to me, came alive in Avengers Assemble (Scarlet Witch and Vision specifically). I'm one of those people that love the scenes where the Avengers sit around the house talking and eating breakfast. I think it makes them seem like a family and provides good character moments. If I have a frustration with Bendis' Avengers run it is that they jump from major event tie-in to major event tie-in and there isn't time for any downtime scenes. The major arcs revolve around Morgana putting the heroes into a medieval reality and interactions with the Squadron Supreme. The medieval idea wasn't interesting when it happened to the JLA and isn't interesting when it happens to the Avengers. It also seemed like a strange way to start a new Avengers series - let's introduce all the characters by putting them in different costumes and changing their names for two issues. My only real exposure to Squadron Supreme has been in its current JMS designed incarnation. I love JMS's incarnation. I think that affected my appreciation for the incarnation that appears in Avengers Assemble. I found the version in Avengers Assemble to be uninteresting, cartoony, and silly. Part of that may come from the role they serve in the story. Even a few of the Avengers (Hawkeye comes to mind) comment that every time they meet the Squadron, the Squadron is under mind control. My interest in picking up old (pre-JMS) Squadron Supreme stories was erased by reading Avengers Assemble. I also wasn't familiar with the two new members of the Avengers (Justice and Firestar - I've never read any New Warriors). The volume concludes with a good anniversary issue. I love the scene of the X-Men watching the Avengers parade on TV and complaining that the X-Men were around first - why don't they get a parade. Colossus says "we don't have to compete with them, Kitty." To which Nightcrawlers says "Oh really?" and points at the TV. On the side of the road, one of the spectators is holding up a sign saying the Beast is his favorite Avenger. Spider-man makes his second appearance in this volume - cementing him as a valid Avenger for Bendis to use - basically to say "hey, I'm an Avenger, but I'm not going to join their parade because my Parker-luck will cause the parade to get attacked.