But With A Whimper: Avengers #24 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Crisis On Infinite Midlives douchiest editors found themselves united against a common threat. Spoilers Assemble!

I am perhaps not the best person to review Avengers #24 objectively, since I have gone on record as not being the biggest proponent of the whole Dark Reign 2 / Return of Norman Osborn / Dark Avengers Redux storyline. Based on particular individual issues in this crossover, I had somewhat softened my original opinion about the story arc, but considering my original prejudices, I perhaps cannot be trusted to be impartial in my opinions about this semi-ending to the story.

However, considering that you have made it this far after being spoiler and prejudice-warned on a Web site where the tagline on every page proclaims me to be a grumpy drunkard, I now feel safe in telling you that the ending of this story is so Goddamned wretchedly and horrifyingly bad it cheapens the entire arc, which I didn’t hold in particularly high value in the first place. In terms of excitement, this ending ranks with “And then I woke up.” In terms of a climax, this is on par with “I’m sorry; this has never happened to me before.” And in terms of pacing, it can only feel like writer Brian Michael Bendis said, “Avengers Vs. X-Men starts when? Oh shit.”

In addition, this story, as did the first Dark Reign storyline a couple years back, violates what should be an obvious and cardinal rule of resolving a Norman Osborn Ascendant story that should be Goddamned obvious on its face… but I’ll get to that in a minute.

This issue provides the resolution to the earlier revelation that Osborn has somehow obtained superpowers… y’know, beyond his Green Goblin powers of strength, speed and shitty aim. And the revelation of the how is interesting, if not revolutionary (Osborn’s hanging out with a bunch of Hydra super scientists; what, did you think he was bitten by a radioactive hooker?), the resolution is just…

Well, let’s get to the other major earlier flaw before we tackle the resolution. At the start of this issue, Osborn is backed by Hand ninjas. At least fourteen Hand ninjas. I know that because that it how many living, breathing Hand ninjas I counted the Avengers killing. Not defeating, not subduing, just flat-out massacring. Red Hulk pops one’s head like a zit. Iron Man auto-repulsors the other thirteen all at once with a blithe, “Ninjas. Not a fan.” It is awesome, and it is badass… and it is so utterly out of character for any of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that it dragged me right out of the story. Watching Tony Stark – tech genius and former Secretary of Defense of the United States of America who wears a tank – murder thirteen people armed with medieval swords almost as an afterthought doesn’t quite ring true. By which I mean it feels like bullshit that eschews character in favor of a bitchin’ visual.

And then there’s the ending. How do the Avengers defeat Osborn, who is shown to have the powers of The Hulk and The Vision – making him incredibly strong and intangible (Remember intangible)? Powers that make Osborn, by any measure within the Marvel Universe, an Omega level threat? Do they call in the military? Do they summon The Eternals? Lay down a Hail Mary and get Ant Man to enter his inner ear and give him a half-assed lobotomy?

Nope. They touch him. They lay down the ol’ Reverse Swaggart, lay hands on him and he collapses.

To be fair, this is an honest and established plot point that makes sense: Norman is shown early in the issue to have been given Adaptoid powers – the power to absorb and use the power of any mutant or superhero who touches him. And Bendis establishes that a risk of this ability is overload; if he absorbs too much, he might collapse. So the resolution of the comic, wherein all the Avengers and New Avengers touch him to cause that overload, is fair. However, it is also Goddamned boring.

Over a page and a half, we see a bunch of people touch Norm, then his face suddenly melts, and boom! We’re in mop-up. We’re told that the New Avengers defeated the Dark Avengers off-camera (Presumably to be shown in the next issue of that book), and then it’s Next Month: Avengers Vs. X-Men. The resolution feels rushed, unnnecessarily abrupt, and again – boring. I bought about eight Avengers and New Avengers issues to wind up seeing a bunch of people in spandex touching a guy, and not only was it not exciting, but it wasn’t even graphic enough for me to come. But perhaps I’m sharing too much.

And this ending perpetuates the major problem I had with the first Dark Reign, which is: in order for the defeat of Norman Osborn to be truly satisfying, that defeat must come at the hands of Spider-Man. To anyone else in the Marvel Universe, Norman Osborn is a rich megalomaniac. To Peter Parker, Norman Osborn is the man who killed his first love. The built-in dramatic tension in that relationship is huge, and to ignore it makes no sense at all to me. To think that Spider-Man wouldn’t be the first guy in line to attack the man who killed Gwen Stacy, Hulk powers or no, feel like a missed opportunity of epic proportions. It is a whiff – for the second time – that matches the cardinal mistake of Star Trek: Generations, which had James T. Kirk dying in a fist fight when the man would have – should have – gone down with the ship. It just. Feels. Wrong.

On the positive side, the art by Daniel Acuna means the book at least looks good; the realistic figures combined with generally space pencils beefed up by excellent, painted-looking colors looks damn good. But it’s illustrating a story that seems rushed, false and anti-climactic. It is a bad end to a story I admittedly didn’t even want in the first place. Come next month, as I did with it’s older brother, I will be trying to forget that Dark Reign 2 ever happened.