Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: C.F. Villa
Color Artist: Federico Blee
Cover Artist: Stuart Immonen
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Avengers have defeated the Twilight Court, so called “heroes” created by a mysterious figure called Myrddin who nearly killed Kang The Conqueror. Why? For knowledge of the legendary “Missing Moment” in Time. While the Avengers have bested his warriors, Myrddin is close to his prize: a vulnerable Kang The Conqueror. Read Avengers (2023) #10 to see what the new villains wants from the time-traveling conqueror.
Review:
Okay. Where to start with this comic. Fair warning, this review will go into SPOILERS for this comic so that I can emphasize the main points of criticism addressed for this comic issue and the series so far. Alright, let’s begin.
Alright, this comic is not as exciting or intriguing as some would suspect based on the cliffhanger from the last issue. Truly, to my shock, 99% of this comic is straight up Myrddin monologuing to Kang the Conqueror. There’s no fighting, no verbal jousting between the two, no cool flashbacks or anything, nothing of substance. All we get is Myrddin gloating over Kang while he’s weak, and Jed MacKay tries to use this opportunity to establish a “rivalry” between these two “chrononauts” as Myrddin describes themselves. Yes, this highlights Myrddin’s hubristic personality, but what we get isn’t really much to begin with. Nothing interesting anyway. Like, why he’s driven to seek this mythical “Missing Moment” in Time that he and Kang are after. Based on the way he presents himself, he just likes a great challenge and that’s also why he lets Kang live, because he likes having a rival to amuse him. Though Myrddin does take away Kang’s knowledge of the Missing Moment before leaving, and once Captain Marvel and Iron Man show up, Kang just yells at them for failing to stop him and leaves too.
My personal theory: Myrddin is another Kang variant in disguise. His word choice and how he waxes poetics about challenges reminds me of Jed MacKay’s first Timeless standalone issue which centered on Kang and his fixation for seeking conflict and explicitly “challenges” to be the greatest, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s using that as the template for Myrddin as another Kang variant seeking to challenge himself. After that, the tail end of the comic is Thor and Scarlet Witch traveling to Nightmare’s realm to question him on whether he’s in league with Myrddin, to which he is not. But their bigger goal is to ask why he trapped them in that particular nightmare. Turns out, it’s because Nightmare is afraid and used the opportunity to convey his need for their aid; he sense a greater threat on the horizon that’s unknown to him but he knows its intent is to “kill the universe”. And after revelation, my enthusiasm for this series dwindled exponentially.
Obviously, I’m not a fan of this comic or this story arc to be honest. First little criticism, the comic recap notes that the Twilight Court surrendered, but we see them still fighting the Avengers. Why? My guess is to fill up extra page space for scenery, even though it straight up contradicts what happened in the previous issue. Then there’s the continued dressing down of Nightmare by Marvel comic writers, this time by Jed MacKay who uses both Thor and Scarlet Witch to essentially demystify the mystical terror as simply a supernatural addict of fear, while they’re in his own realm mind you.
Yet the biggest problem in this issue, other than Myrddin’s drawn out monologue, is MacKay set up another “universe killer” story for the Avengers. Look, we just had an entire Avengers run from Jason Aaron that was all about trying to stop massive threats from killing universes and later the Multiverse. It was a slog to get through, to put it nicely. And now MacKay is setting up another story where someone out in the cosmos wants to kill the universe for….some reason. If nothing else, this “universe killer” story has gotten so played out with how frequently Marvel Comics keeps throwing in these cosmic threats for all kinds of characters to fight, not just the Avengers. Al Ewing even set up a new cosmic threat that’s just as big, if not possibly bigger, in his Defenders: Beyond miniseries. So, it’s not like this is new, interesting, or shaking things up for the Avengers. It’s just more of the same.
Final Thoughts:
Avengers (2023) #10 concludes this battle between the Avengers and the new Twilight Court with a focus on their leader, the enigmatic Myrddin. Unfortunately, what we get of Myrddin is serviceable at best, uninteresting at worst. We get a sense of his personality, but the comic is mostly him monologuing to Kang while his Twilight Court get bested by the Avengers. On top of that, the comic sets up a new unknown threat for the Avengers to face, but it feels like a repeat of what the previous Avengers run just did as far as the scope of the threat. What will make or break this issue at least, is whether or not readers like what they get of Myrddin here.