Avengers (2023) #33 Review

Writer: Jed MacKay

Artist: Javier Pina

Color Artist: Federico Blee

Cover Artists: Cafu & David Curiel

Publisher: Marvel Publisher

Reviewer: StoryBabbler

The Avengers have engaged their enemy, Kang the Conqueror for the Grail and the fate of their universe. But while hope seemed lost, it was restored with the arrival of the Impossible City, or as it’s known by its true name of Camelot, with the aid of the Twilight Court. Read Avengers (2023) #33 to learn the tale of the Twilight Court’s heroic return.

Review:

Alright, so the big reveal last issue was that the Twilight Court are alive and returned with the Impossible City, which is actually called Camelot and was their HQ, to help backup the Avengers against Kang the Conqueror. But how are they alive? And why did they choose to come help? Well, this issue tackles all of that. There will be SPOILERS in this review.

The story starts with the Twilight Court in what’s called a “Pirate Timeline” filled with endless sand, a couple dead Celestials, and a very familiar ship in the distance. And in the sand, King Artur recounts their woes and how he failed his knights. Meanwhile, there’s some aggressive disagreement between several members until Artur breaks it up and seeks counsel from the hooded Parsifal, who speaks of their voiced failures but the biggest being how they failed to follow the example of those they were meant to mirror: the Avengers. So, the court decides to survive and help the heroes, but first they needed a way out of the eroding timeline. But as I hinted earlier, Artur notes that their salvation comes in the form of a giant sword-like spaceship, Damocles. The former spaceship of Kang the Conqueror himself, at least a Kang from another timeline.

So, the Twilight Court enter the downed Damocles and get to work pooling their talents and abilities together to get the ship operational again. With the help of some cameos from Jed MacKay’s Timeless one-shot featuring Kang, the Twilight Court escape alive. But it also turns out that the Damocles Base ship’s AI was still running, so the Court renamed it “Camelot”. From there we get the origins of the Impossible City, a lore dump on unseen heroics by the Twilight Court, how the ship was taken by the Ashen Combine, etc.

Okay, so I’m not going to hide the fact that I don’t think highly of the Twilight Court. They were introduced as synthetic super-soldiers literally made by “Myrddin” to be Arthurian counterparts to the Avengers. But they got their butts kicked in their only major appearance in this run, and every other mention, even in the big reveal issue of Kang as Myrddin, doubled down on how ineffectual they are. Point is, I was not thrilled, though not shocked, to see they survived being killed by The Grandmaster.

Jed MacKay pulls double duty trying to explain how the Twilight Court survived and made their heel turn in a way that comes back to honoring the concept of the Avengers while also explaining how they lost the Impossible City, aka Camelot to the Ashen Combine. Admittedly, the former is more compelling than the latter. Is this issue great? No. But it was well-written and does its best to have things make sense and build towards honoring the Avengers. This issue isn’t a must read comic at all. The writing’s fine, the art’s good, but unless you’re a completionist, then you don’t need this issue, at least by itself anyway.

Final Thoughts:

Avengers #33 tells the tale of the Twilight Court’s survival and how they rediscovered their heroic roots. Obviously, the comic is well-written and makes good use of the art to do its best showing the Twilight Court in their lowest moment before finding their heroic spirits again. Now that their story has been told, all the pieces are on the board for the big battle in the next issue.