On Sale Date: June 2018
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Paco Medina & Ed McGuiness
Inker: Juan Vlasco w/ Mark Morales & Jay Leisten
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Colorist: David Curiel
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Associate Editor: Alanna Smith
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Cover Artist: Ed McGuiness
Ghost Rider and She-Hulk have destroyed the alien insects that had attacked them, and in response to the voice in her head She-Hulk smashes a path through the ground down toward the center of the Earth. Ghost Rider reluctantly follows her in his Hell-Charger. Meanwhile, In New York City, Loki had incapacitated Thor, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel while explaining that the Final Host have arrived to exterminate all human life on the planet. Captain America, held in stasis by the Host, manages to throw his shield at the warp grenades held by Loki. Loki, the Final Host, and Captain America are all teleported into the sun.
At the Earth's core, Black Panther and Doctor Strange are being overwhelmed by the insect horde and are rescued by Ghost Rider and She-Hulk. Captain America wakes up in a bubble created by Loki inside the sun, where he finds that all of the Final Host survived. Back in New York, Ghost Rider arrives with the other heroes inside his car, and they confer notes with Iron Man, Thor, and Captain Marvel. The Final Host have arrived at the North Pole and Loki explains to Captain America that he's actually the hero, that he found one of the Final Host inside a crater where he'd been left to die by Odin a million years ago. Back in New York, the heroes start making plans, and Thor teleports himself and She-Hulk to the ruins of Old Asgard to get answers from Odin. Captain Marvel and Black Panther go to the Alpha Flight space station to come up with a way to combat the insects, and Iron Man goes with Doctor Strange to find the Eternals. Left alone, Ghost Rider uses a piece of the Celestial technology as a homing beacon and drives off across the ocean to find the Final Host. At the North Pole, beneath the ice, Loki shows Captain America the corpse of another Celestial that he calls the Progenitor, the cause of the planet's infection.
Ghost Rider and She-Hulk have destroyed the alien insects that had attacked them, and in response to the voice in her head She-Hulk smashes a path through the ground down toward the center of the Earth. Ghost Rider reluctantly follows her in his Hell-Charger. Meanwhile, In New York City, Loki had incapacitated Thor, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel while explaining that the Final Host have arrived to exterminate all human life on the planet. Captain America, held in stasis by the Host, manages to throw his shield at the warp grenades held by Loki. Loki, the Final Host, and Captain America are all teleported into the sun.
At the Earth's core, Black Panther and Doctor Strange are being overwhelmed by the insect horde and are rescued by Ghost Rider and She-Hulk. Captain America wakes up in a bubble created by Loki inside the sun, where he finds that all of the Final Host survived. Back in New York, Ghost Rider arrives with the other heroes inside his car, and they confer notes with Iron Man, Thor, and Captain Marvel. The Final Host have arrived at the North Pole and Loki explains to Captain America that he's actually the hero, that he found one of the Final Host inside a crater where he'd been left to die by Odin a million years ago. Back in New York, the heroes start making plans, and Thor teleports himself and She-Hulk to the ruins of Old Asgard to get answers from Odin. Captain Marvel and Black Panther go to the Alpha Flight space station to come up with a way to combat the insects, and Iron Man goes with Doctor Strange to find the Eternals. Left alone, Ghost Rider uses a piece of the Celestial technology as a homing beacon and drives off across the ocean to find the Final Host. At the North Pole, beneath the ice, Loki shows Captain America the corpse of another Celestial that he calls the Progenitor, the cause of the planet's infection.
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| I'd imagine Robbie is sick of Hulks by now. |
THE ROADMAP
Loki recovered the mad Celestial from South Africa in Marvel Legacy (2017) # 1, which was reanimated and used to threaten Odin in Free Comic Book Day 2018: Avengers/Captain America # 1.
Robbie last encountered a different Hulk, Amadeus Cho, in Ghost Rider (2016) # 5.
CHAIN REACTION
The Avengers are finally assembled (well, almost) in an issue that suffers from some apparently last-minute art changes.
Well, I say "suffers", but if you're going to get an artist to sub for Ed McGuiness you can do a whole lot worse than Paco Medina. He's been an artist I've enjoyed since his days way back on Marvel's New X-Men series, he's got a nice clean line with that same house style that Marvel employs, making his work fit pretty seamlessly with McGuiness. You almost can't tell when the art switches occur unless you study it closely (looks like McGuiness handled all of the scenes with Loki and Captain America after they get sent to the sun), their styles are that evenly matched. Where the art does fall down is in the finishes, since having three inkers on the issue can make for some weird tone shifts. When the heroes are all meeting in New York before splitting up again, the inks look really washed out and almost minimized, leaving the colorist to pick up the slack. Still, it all looks decent, but it makes me wonder what happened to McGuiness that he couldn't meet the deadlines for the biggest Marvel launch of the year?
Outside of the art, this issue's plot slows the story's momentum down to a grinding halt in several different ways. While it's nice to see the heroes all linking up as a team it's really an exercise in extending out the plot, since Aaron immediately just partners them and splits them up again. The heroes all have their individual fetch quests doled out and it really just reads like page filler. Similarly, the whole "trip to the sun" doesn't serve a purpose other than separating the heroes and villains in a blatantly artificial way. The comic's worse offense, though, is the use of Loki as the info-dumping villain that talks and talks and talks but explains nothing about what's really going on.
On the positive side, Robbie Reyes is getting a good amount of panel time as the "fish out of water" hero that gets told to shuffle on home by the big men on campus. Iron Man's reaction to him is appropriately dismissive and snarky, and the derisive pet names he gives him are clever. Robbie still doesn't quite read right to me, he's far too quippy and upbeat compared to how he's always been characterized, but I'm again willing to forgive it.
So this issue really stalls things out and gives a pretty good indicator for how the next few issues are going to play out. I hate to say it, but I'm bored reading this, and that's absolutely not how I should feel about the first arc of a new Avengers series.
Well, I say "suffers", but if you're going to get an artist to sub for Ed McGuiness you can do a whole lot worse than Paco Medina. He's been an artist I've enjoyed since his days way back on Marvel's New X-Men series, he's got a nice clean line with that same house style that Marvel employs, making his work fit pretty seamlessly with McGuiness. You almost can't tell when the art switches occur unless you study it closely (looks like McGuiness handled all of the scenes with Loki and Captain America after they get sent to the sun), their styles are that evenly matched. Where the art does fall down is in the finishes, since having three inkers on the issue can make for some weird tone shifts. When the heroes are all meeting in New York before splitting up again, the inks look really washed out and almost minimized, leaving the colorist to pick up the slack. Still, it all looks decent, but it makes me wonder what happened to McGuiness that he couldn't meet the deadlines for the biggest Marvel launch of the year?
Outside of the art, this issue's plot slows the story's momentum down to a grinding halt in several different ways. While it's nice to see the heroes all linking up as a team it's really an exercise in extending out the plot, since Aaron immediately just partners them and splits them up again. The heroes all have their individual fetch quests doled out and it really just reads like page filler. Similarly, the whole "trip to the sun" doesn't serve a purpose other than separating the heroes and villains in a blatantly artificial way. The comic's worse offense, though, is the use of Loki as the info-dumping villain that talks and talks and talks but explains nothing about what's really going on.
On the positive side, Robbie Reyes is getting a good amount of panel time as the "fish out of water" hero that gets told to shuffle on home by the big men on campus. Iron Man's reaction to him is appropriately dismissive and snarky, and the derisive pet names he gives him are clever. Robbie still doesn't quite read right to me, he's far too quippy and upbeat compared to how he's always been characterized, but I'm again willing to forgive it.
So this issue really stalls things out and gives a pretty good indicator for how the next few issues are going to play out. I hate to say it, but I'm bored reading this, and that's absolutely not how I should feel about the first arc of a new Avengers series.
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| Ghost Taxi! |
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