Writer: Jed MacKay

Artist: Andrea Broccardo

Color Artist: Federico Blee

Cover Artists: Valerio Schiti & Federico Blee

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Reviewer: StoryBabbler

While the Avengers are away getting into fights with Dr. Doom, now Sorcerer Supreme and legal ruler of the world, some of the Masters of Evil tried to take over their new HQ. Sam Wilson, Captain America stepped up to fight and Black Panther returned to help him out. Now, in this issue of Avengers #28, its Captain America and Black Panther vs. the Mad Thinker.

Review:

Alright, it’s the finale to this story: Sam Wilson Captain America & Black Panther vs The Mad Thinker in his new Adaptoids Armor. With it, Thinker has abilities mimicking the strength and abilities of the other Masters of Evil. The heroes admit that the Mad Thinker has them “out-thought” but they still have the chance of outsmarting him. Which means they’ve got a plan. There will be SPOILERS in this review.

So, the comic gets right to it with Mad Thinker going after the heroes and making a big landing to surprise them. Once he makes contact, the verbal jousting commences and then the fight starts. Naturally, we see Thinker pull out weapons evoking the other Masters, like an energy blade for Dreadknight, an arm gun for Exterminatrix, physical strength like that of Mr. Hyde, and he even gets a good shot at Black Panther with a visual beam similar to Madcap’s Madness Gaze.

Obviously, things don’t go too well for the Avengers at first, until they have the AI in Sam’s suit, the Impossible City AI, transfer to an adaptoid then take over Dreadknight’s armor (which is weird because it’s fused to his skin, so there’s a bit of body horror there) and use Dreadknight’s override authority to cause a hard reset. Thus, allowing the Impossible City to retake control, eliminate Quasimodo, and bring in the rest of the Avengers who promptly defeat Mad Think. Off-page.

Then we get some talking between characters specifically between T’Challa and Storm who quickly reconcile with each other in the span of one and a half pages, and are now friendly. A little rushed, let’s be real, but I’ll take it so long as we don’t get a bunch of awkward dialogue between them in future issues. Meanwhile, this comment from Iron Man saying “Masters of Evil. God. They’re like radioactive waste – they never go away.” had me facepalm. Why? Because the Avengers are the one who chose to work with them in the first place.

It’s rather un-self-aware for Jed MacKay to have Iron Man say that when, not too long ago, they not only teamed up with the group calling themselves the Masters of Evil, they fought with them in the last three issues in the One World Under Doom event, mainly issues #2 and #3. So, this reaction from Iron Man or any of them about recent events is totally misplaced since they’re the ones who allied with them in the first place and only have themselves to blame when some chose to try and hijack their stuff. Beyond that, the comic isn’t bad. It’s not great, don’t get it twisted, Mad Thinker was not a great villain here, his Adaptoid Armor looks fine but he never really gets the heroes on the ropes. It was just a relief to have this story end so we can get back to the bigger story of the Missing Moment and all that, which the next issue will be digging into.

Final Thoughts:

Avengers #28 concludes the Masters of Evil story arc with a fight between Captain America, Black Panther and the Mad Thinker. The fight is drawn well, the character dialogue is good, some parts of the fight were better than others. However, now that things are wrapped up by the end, it seems the series will be moving forward with its main plot.

7.5/10