Superior Avengers #1 // Review
Annihilus. The bearer of the Cosmic Control Rod. Sometimes ruler of The Negative Zone. He’s invading the Earth. He’s going to meet with some resistance from Earth’s Mightiest heroes: Malekelith the Accursed, Doctor Octopus, Onslaught and Ghost. It’s a powerful and sisnister group of people who look to protect the Earth from invasion in Superior Avengers #1. Writer Steve Foxe opens a new chapter in the One World Under Doom event. The opening chapter of the team’s exploits come to page and panel courtesy of artist Luca Maresca and colorist Matia Iacono. Foxe works a few reasonably novel ideas involving time travel in the Marvel multiverse with a fun new concept.
Doctor Doom’s son is working to build a team that can establish its on kind of heroism under his father. The are those drawn from futures in which Doom will have ruled for many years. In theory it should be a chance for Doom to gain some support from the people he rules over. It’s not easy to find the right people. though. A time platform conjures an Amadeus Cho from 44 years into Doom’s rule. The large Gamma-irradiated powerhouse might be a good addition to the team...if it went’ for the fact that Doom hadn’t been well-loved by Cho...so naturally he’s going to attack. And Doom is going to be more than a bit disappointed.
It’s always fun to see weird mutations of the expected in alternate worlds of the Marvel Universe. Doom IS a guy who would want to protect the Earth under his rule and so a lot of the alien invasion-style threats that the Avengers have a tendency to deal with would play-out much the same way they would with a more traditional team of heroes. So there are quite a few clever similarities with powerful heroes who had play the role of villains in the mainstream Marvel Universe. It’s fun.
Maresca maintains a sinister heroism about the team that looks pretty impressive on the page. It would have been a bit more interesting to see the monstrous villainy of Annihilus compared against the villainous heroism of this particular group of heroes, but Foxe doesn’t geive the team a whole lot of room to explore that as the initial encounter is only allowed to move for a few pages before a whole lot of dramatic tension is developed. The drama DOES feel pretty strong on the page in a world that is given quite a bit of resonance and radiance by the color work of Iacono.
And though there iS novelty in seeing villains forced into heroism unde the rule of an arch-villain...that novelty in and of itself isn’t enough to keep the series interesting beyond its first couple of issues. The team itself DOES have quite a bit of novelty to it that could actually turn out to be quite fascinating if Foxe and company are able to maintain the right narrative momentum. There’s enough in the opening issue to suggest that this mght well happen.
