Back To Square One: Avengers #31 Review
Brian Michael Bendis is soon leaving the Avengers titles after extended runs writing them going back around eight years. That’s a lot of story, including an immeasurable amount of character development, plot twists, and universe building. Most of it good and compelling, some of it not, but no matter what you think of the years of storytelling, you have to admit that it’s had an impact.
Or at least you have to admit that it had an impact. Because regardless of tenure or reach, Bendis does not own the Avengers. And now that he is moving on to Marvel’s X-Men titles, it is now apparently time to take some of the most impactful events of his time at the wheel… and roll them back to the 2003 status quo, just in time for the next guy to take over, do some stuff, and inevitably roll that back when a new person wants to play with the old toys.
In short, welcome to Avengers #31, the first part of the End Times storyline, and what appears to be the final retcon of a couple of the remaining epic events of Bendis’s Avengers story. He appears to be taking this final opportunity to glue the heads back on the last couple of action figures he mangled while he had custody of the toy box… and while it is giving me a temporary feeling of, “Goddammit, again?”, it is probably a wise long-term choice for Marvel… and one that could wind up being satisfying if executed well, if yet another example of showing that, in the comics world, Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne and Uncle Ben are the unluckiest sons of bitches in the world.
It is the immediate aftermath of Avengers Vs. X-Men, and the Avengers are taking some R & R. Everyone is napping, boning each other, or if you’re Captain America, enjoying a hot cup of Tony Stark’s imported monkey asshole coffee (I’m guessing, but it seems like the kind of crank Stark would buy), relaxing in front of the TV and watching desperate civilians left homeless and ruined by the massive battle with the X-Men scream impotently at cameras for answers. I, personally, prefer The Daily Show, but I’m not in a position to, you know, put down my coffee cup and assist people my actions have left destitute.
But alas, The Avengers are unable to enjoy an extended period of rest and refuge from their – shall we call them “innocent victims?” – as former Avenger Wonder Man, known in the 80s as having the most dapper leisure suit costume in comics and known more recently for attempting to destroy the Avengers for perceived crimes against humanity, comes crawling back to ask for forgiveness before subduing the Red Hulk and vowing he would earn his way back into the team’s good graces. One would think a better way to accomplish this would be to assist the desperate people left with nothing after Avengers Vs. X-Men so that Tony Stark can catch up on Angry Birds, as opposed to knocking out a Hulk, but what the hell do I know? In the meantime, the team is further roused from their torpor by an emergency Avengers signal from Inner Space – the home of the Micronauts, for those born after the 1970s…
Page 1 of 3 | Next page
