Writer: Jed Mackay

Artist: Ivan Fiorelli

Color Artist: Federico Blee

Cover Artist: Stuart Immonen

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Price: $4.99

Reviewer: StoryBabbler

The Avengers have faced some deadly threats lately. One after another, the alien Ashen Combine, the Twilight Court and their leader the enigmatic Myrrdin. And now their lead and main source of info on the Tribulation Events, Kang the Conqueror, has left their care for failing to protect him from Myrddin. After some wins and losses, the Avengers need some help, and who better to ask to help than Jarvis himself. See an old and beloved ally of the team return in Avengers #11.

Review:

Alright, so the last story arc ended with plenty of action, intrigue, big and small developments, and a lot of setup for later stories and threats for the series. Not all of it great, some of it good, overall a mixed bag, which also best describes this comic as well. Fair warning, there will be SPOILERS in this review.

The comic starts out with an introduction provided by none other than famous Marvel supervillain…The Mad Thinker? Okay, to be serious, the Mad Thinker is more of a Fantastic Four villain than he is an Avengers villain, so his appearance certainly caught me off-guard. Anyway, we get some conversations in the beginning about what the Avengers should do with the Ashen Combine since Carol explicitly doesn’t want the heroes to be cops and just jail their enemies and some of the others throw around some ideas, none of them viable. We get some casual interactions between heroes until the halfway point where the action starts and the Mad Thinker’s true plan kicks in.

Okay, earlier I said that this comic was a mixed bag and that’s because for all of the good elements that are bad elements keeping it from being a fun read. As per usual, I’ll start with the good then cover the bad. So, the first thing to note is that Jed Mackay has a knack for writing the Avengers as not only heroes but friends, able to give most of them good casual conversations that both highlight their core personalities yet the dialogue mostly feels right to the individual characters. Then there’s Ivan Fiorelli’s art which continues to be excellent when depicting the characters on all fronts from their facial expressions to displaying body language, the paneling, and of course the action.

Also, the big show stealer of this comic is none other than Jarvis and the Mad Thinker, sort of. The former certainly dominates as the driving personality at play in this comic which is helped by the fact Mackay gives him a defined personality that more than perfectly fits Jarvis and is just fun to read. Whereas the latter looks to be getting some much needed attention at being set up as a major antagonist for the Avengers to face, later down the line of course. That was all of the good, so let us delve into the bad.

Firstly, the opening discussion about the Avengers deciding what to do with the Ashen Combine makes sense to see. But having Carol posit rehabilitation as an option and really not wanting the Avengers to be like “cops” feels…a little forced. Plus, we know rehabilitation for supervillains never sticks and rarely goes anywhere in Marvel Comics, so it felt unnecessary to bring up. On top of that, the Ashen Combine are genocidal cosmic megalomaniacs who’ve destroyed and terrorized whole worlds with glee. And let’s be clear, none of the Avengers like them or think they’re tragic figures, so why she brought it up, again, felt a little forced, and the other Avengers don’t really come up with better options. If she were talking about rehabilitating the Twilight Court, then sure, that makes sense since they have the traits to be heroic and could be real heroes if Myrddin’s out of the picture and they were shown the way. But not these guys.

Then there’s the comic repeatedly bringing up Orchis and all that just puts a bad taste in the mouth considering the underwhelming state of things of the X-Men’s Krakoan Era. I won’t go too deep into that subject, but I will say that it’s just a bad symptom of yet another Marvel crossover event that’s forcing a flagship title to put the brakes on its own stories to tie into it. Then there’s the action itself, it just felt boring and obligatory, like the comic didn’t really want to have action. Simply put, the Mad Thinker’s Plastic Men, or Plastoids, were boring enemies and aside from their designs, nothing about them is interesting. They don’t have any cool powers or abilities aside from typical strength, shooting lasers, and having the ability to merge into a single big plastoid. But that’s it.

Final Thoughts:

Avengers #11 delivers more of a cool-down story for the Avengers as their oldest friend and ally Jarvis shows up to help. Jarvis is definitely the show stealer here since his personality is well-defined, fun, and he mostly takes over the comic when he shows up, which is nice to see. However, it’s a little sad to see the early signs of the comic being forced to put a hold on its own stories to tie into the Fall of X crossover event. And while Ivan Fiorelli’s art is good, the action wasn’t that thrilling since the Mad Thinker’s minions were pretty generic enemies to see the Avengers fight.

7/10